Class. r; 4 3 y 

Book L_- 



A.N AEGUMENT 



AGAINST 



lis 



If titan ^>kk Crafoe, 

BY 

fy 

ROBERT Gi HARPER, ESQ. 




ATLANTA, GEORGIA: 
PRINTED BY C. R. HANLEITEK. 

1858. 



tns it 

■H*i 1 



The question of re-opening the African Slave Trade, when 
first sprang by the Southern Convention, was supposed by 
most people to be of that class of unreasonable and ultra 
notions, which would, everywhere, meet with discountenance 
from the temperate judgment of the people ; and would ne- 
ver assume an attitude of sufficient importance to require 
serious opposition. The agitation of it by those Conventions, 
however, has resulted in calling attention to the subject ; and 
although no very strong support has been derived to the pol- 
icy, by the action had upon it, at the late Convention in 
Montgomery, yet it is evident, that the result has been to 
invest the question with a degree of importance which no 
longer admits of its being treated with silence or contempt. 
The fact that many of our people — particularly of the 
Southern Rights' School — and who, whether always within 
the limits of true wisdom or not, are never to be denied the 
credit of being foremost in their devotion to our cause, arc 
becoming interested in it, and " favorably inclined to it," is 
sufficient to entitle the question to be regarded, as a grave 
question at least, and one worthy to be considered. I pro- 
pose, therefore, in a temperate spirit to examine it ; and while 
I appreciate the generous Southern warmth, in which it has 
originated, and entertain for it that respect which is emi- 
nently due to even the virtuous errors which in these evil 
times fall on the side of the suffering South, I shall attempt, 
by dispassionate argument, to show that it is a misguided 
policy, and one which, if effectuated, would prove anything 
but advantageous to the cause of Slavery. 



4 



ARGUMENT. 



That many have espoused this scheme, purely because it 
presents itself as a Southern measure, and one calculated to 
defy the North, is more than probable. And men whose 
opinions are formed under the impulse and spur of a spirit 
of resistance, aggravated as that spirit has been by a histo- 
ry of unparalelled wrongs, and who are impelled by the very 
extremity of the defenceless position our section has been 
doomed to occupy under those wrongs, are not always to be 
expected to examine with full deliberation, or to weigh dis- 
passionately all the consequences and ulterior results of a 
proposition, which bears upon its face a Southern aspect. In 
this way many have given in their adhesion to this project, 
not so much for any intrinsic advantages it offers the South, 
but because of that very attitude of resistance and hostility 
to Northern sentiment which it seems to assume. These 
are not to be driven from their position by any proofs which 
might be arrayed, showing the danger to result to the Union 
from the adoption of the policy, but are, perhaps, the more 
favorable to it, in proportion as it threatens the catastrophe 
of disunion, and offers that dernier resort which they re- 
gard as the only remedy for existing grievances. I do not 
mean by these observations that all who have embraced this 
measure are in favor of disunion, either now, or at that pe- 
riod which seems to be hoped for by some, when the South 
shall be better "united" in sentiment ; nor that all have em- 
braced it under the strong impulse of Southern feelings, 
without reflection ; but I say, that this is probably true of 
many of its advocates. And to those who have thus 
espoused the doctrine, I will present a preliminary thought, 
which I think they will admit to be fully justified by the 
present state of the question, and by the action taken upon 
it in our Southern Conventions. That is, that if unity of 
sentiment is desirable, and essential to any great measure of 
redress or relief, or to any move by the Southern States to- 
wards resistance or disunion, this question of re-opening 
the Slave Trade is not the one to rally upon. It has in it 



ARGUMENT. 



5 



none of the elements of harmony. It would, if sufficiently 
inaugurated into the politics of Southern men, and particu- 
larly if engrafted, as all great questions are apt to become, 
upon party creeds in the South, prove the most excitable 
fire-brand that has been thrown into our ranks, as a people, 
and would leave us in any other condition than that one so 
much desired, of a " united South." 

I do not propose, at any length, to discuss the question 
in reference to its bearing upon the Union. It might, by 
producing division and distraction in Southern sentiment, in- 
directly add strength to the Union. Or, if possible to be 
adopted in the manner which some have suggested, by the 
separate action of the States, in defiance of the acts of Con- 
gress, it might endanger the peace of the Union, by bring- 
ing about a collision between Federal and State laws and 
authorities. If, however, it were possible to have those Acts 
of Congress repealed, so that there would be no impediment 
in the way of its adoption by the States — and Southern 
States should open this Trade — I should have no apprehen- 
sion that the outraged feelings of the North would lead 
them to a move of dissolution. The North has never mani- 
fested a disposition to dissolve the Union : all considerable 
parties there are Union men — rather too strongly attached 
to the Union, unless their federalism was tempered with 
more respect and fidelity to the spirit of the Constitution. 
The real advtntages to that section, which are reaped at our 
expense from the Union, have secured their devotion to it, 
by a tie of interest which is stronger than fanatic sentimen- 
talism. I do not think, then, that there is much force in the 
idea that the adoption of the Slave Trade, if it were possi- 
ble to be adopted, would produce disunion. 

But the question of disunion, as connected with this sub- 
ject arises in a different way. It is in the idea which seems 
to be now pretty generally admitted — at least if we judge 
from the action and sentiments of the recent Convention — 
that the thing cannot be accomplished without the prelimi- 



6 



ARGUMENT. 



nary step of disunion. In other words, that the project is 
one which the South cannot carry into effect, even if she de- 
sires it, without first withdrawing from federal alliance and 
forming a Confederacy of Southern States. I think the last 
resolution, on this subject, introduced in the Montgomery 
Convention was by Mr. Aiken, perhaps, which was " that 
it would be expedient after a dissolution of the Union to 
re-establish the Slave Trade." This view proceeded upon 
the manifest idea that no Congressional action could rea- 
sonably be expected in favor of the project, while things 
remain as they are. And if this is a correct view of the 
case, the conclusion follows that, as to all practical intents 
and purposes, the question itself of re-opening the traffic 
is identified with the controlling question of disunion, as a 
necessary preliminary step. So that the most ardent advo- 
cates of the idea, if they mean anything more than an emp- 
ty agitation of a theoretical policy, must turn their thoughts, 
first to the preliminary point of paving the way for its 
adoption by bringing about, in advance a dissolution of the 
Union. If they cannot dissolve the Union, and relieve 
themselves of the power of Northern majorities, it is useless 
to expect a repeal of the Act making the Slave Trade pi- 
racy, or the passage of any Act accomplishing their purpose. 

Now, whether the Union ought to be dissolved for any ex- 
isting cause, or any prospective cause which may be sug- 
gested by the shadows which coming event* cast before 
them, I shall not argue here. And whether the benefits to 
be derived to the South, from re-opening the Slave Trade, 
are so great as to make it desirable that the South should 
be severed from the North to attain this object ; or whether 
the project is even meritorious enough to add any thing at 
all to the weight of the arguments already thrown in the 
disunion scale by Southern Confederacy men, will be the 
better decided by an examination of the merits of the ques- 
tion in a more abstract point of view. And this is the only 
way in which I wish to touch at all upon the point of dis- 



ARGUMENT. 



7 



union, as connected with this question. As already intimated, 
I do not intend to count the value of the Union, and weigh 
it against the alleged advantages of the Slave Trade. I pro- 
pose rather to count the value of the Slave Trade, and weigh 
it to itself. I only mean, by my allusion to its acknowledged 
connexion with the disunion question, to present the idea of 
impracticability which that connexion suggests. That 
idea is one which I may well unfold, without going beyond 
the legitimate limits of the matter in dispute. For surely, 
in discussing any great proposition, or any policy, it becomes 
a matter of the highest importance to consider whether or 
not it is possible to succeed in establishing it, if it can be 
shown to be worthy of establishment. 

Have the advocates of this measure, then, duly reflected 
upon the impossibility of effecting their object in the Union ? 
Have they remembered that the North has the power in both 
branches of Congress, and that all parties there will be fix- 
edly against it ? That their power is growing with the ac- 
cession of new States, and must continue to grow ? And 
have they remembered that the strength of the Union is so 
great in the hearts of Southern men that the moment it is 
perceived that the Slave Trade, or any other question, is 
complicated with the dread issue of disunion — that it involves 
it, or is involved by it — the Union feeling will sweep over 
the entire South with irresistible power ? 

This consideration which reduces the question of the Slave 
Trade to an impossibility, and to a hopeless abstraction for 
all practical purposes, would seem to be sufficient to demon- 
strate the folly of distracting the Southern mind by its agi- 
tation. Every attempt at a measure which involves the fate 
of the Union, has hitherto and always will result in two 
consequences: one is, to develope the impossibility of a 
united South upon any issue of the kind ; and the other, to 
prove to the world that the Federal Union is so deeply im- 
bedded in the affections of Southern people that no consid- 
erable party ?at the South will stake its fortunes upon any 



8 



ARGUMENT. 



measure which imperils it in the remotest manner. There 
is no more idle chapter in the history of Southern politics 
than the one relating to the matter of resisting the General 
Government. Every issue of the kind has proven that the 
South is wofully divided, and that the Union sentiment is 
stronger than the resisting sentiment. Might I not even say, 
that it has proven more than that : it has proven — indepen- 
dently of the merits of the question in controversy — that 
the Southern people are so torn into hostile parties that 
these are ever more concerned in resisting each other, than 
in resisting the aggressions of the North ? While thus divided, 
we may expect to be easily rendered submissive to the move- 
ments of the General Government, whether those movements 
be within the limits of the Constitution or widely outside of 
them. 

The strength of the Federal Union has never yet been fully 
put to the test. In its very organization, as originally 
framed and originally interpreted by the fathers, it was no 
fragile structure. The great evil of the time, and which 
they undertook to reform and remedy, was the weakness of 
the old confederation and the inefficiency of its powers. It 
was this necessity which caused the call of the Convention 
of 1787. The framers of the existing Constitution were 
not unmindful of that necessity, and, with all their jealousy 
of power, they were impelled, by the sad experience of the 
workings of the loose Confederation, to endow the new or- 
ganization with no small measure of the essential attributes 
of governmental energy and authority. That these powers 
were hedged in by the bulwarks of Magna Charter, and 
fenced with reservations and limitations, is not denied. But 
these bulwarks are rights which lie in contract — they are 
choses in action — and if violated or invaded, they must 
either be sued for at the feet of federal pow T er, or re-asserted 
and re-conquered by revolutionary means ; while the attri- 
butes and grants of power are fortified and armed with the 
ever ready instruments of the army and navy, and the 



ARGUMENT. 



9 



more than martial power of patronage and the treasury. 
The means of defence for the rights gaurantied and the 
powers reserved, which we are accustomed to rely upon— such, 
for instance, as the principles of the Virginia and Kentucky 
resolutions of 1798 — are in their nature very much like the 
rights and powers themselves. They are mere abstractions 
and propositions, which have within themselves no means of 
self-protection and defence, and no remedy for violation and 
infringement, but that same revolutionary remedy which is 
inalienably reserved to man under every form of govern- 
ment. And when invaded by usurpation, if the usurping 
power will not restore them, they must be won, as they were 
originally won. 

The reservation to the States and people was a general 
provision, whose exact range and scope, was not in its na- 
ture definable, and not fully understood by themselves or 
their posterity ; originally, a constructive conclusion from 
the nature of the system, and subsequently embodied in a 
distinct clause by amendment, and made to follow and stand 
subordinate to grants of power, which in their compass and 
extent had already covered nearly all the great province of 
human authority. So that the State Governments, however 
supreme, if supreme they be, are confined to a very limited 
sphere of sovereign exercise. The result, as every observ- 
ing mind must perceive, and the history of the country clearly 
shows has been that the Federal Government, in its opera- 
tions, has assumed the attitude of an absorbing and controll- 
ing power ; and although in mere theory the States are con- 
sidered the depositories of sovereignty, the practical exer- 
cise of that sovereignty is transferred to the machinery of 
the federal organization. The magnitude of its powers, 
the controlling nature of the objects of national interest 
over which its province extends, has given it an elevation of 
supremacy, even in the estimation of the citizens of the most 
jealous States, which over-rides to a great degree the theory 
of State Sovereignty, and the idea that the General Govern- 



10 



ARGUMENT. 



ment is the creature of the States. That this latter theory 
- is true, no statesman will deny ; but no one can deny that it is 
a truth which is to be found in theory alone. The powers of 
the General Government, too, have lost nothing by its com- 
paratively peaceable operation for these seventy years of its 
existence. It is the nature of all successful systems of 
government, to gain strength and power as they move on. 
Written limitations are feeble barriers to that accretion. 
Necessity and policy over-ride all these, and the will of De- 
mocracies and Republics is as prompt to sanction and sus- 
tain usurpations, when placed upon grounds of necessity and 
policy, as that of any other people. Neither are the people of 
these forms of Government less apt than others to fall inlove 
with the splendor of power. Andrew Jackson was the most 
arbitrary Chief-Magistrate we ever had, and yet, that very 
disposition made him one of the most powerfully influential 
and popular men of our times. And if the Force Bill had 
been carried into effect, and the dread conflict between Fed- 
eral and State powers had not been happily averted, he, 
though a strict constructionist in theory, and the represent- 
ative of a State Rights' Party, would have invested himself 
with all the ensigns of power which ever belonged to Alex- 
ander or Caesar. And that he would have been backed by 
the overwhelming force of public opinion — by majorities of 
States and majorities within States — no man can doubt, who 
remembers the fierceness of the strife even in South Caroli- 
na's neighboring confederates. If no other cause had se- 
cured federal triumph and success, the fell spirit of party 
would have bowed the neck of a free people to the yoke of 
a more than Roman despotism. And thus the Stars and 
Stripes, those beautiful emblems of popular liberty, would 
have waived at the head of a conquering column of federal 
troops, with bristling bayonets and neighing war-steeds, who 
would have decided questions of constitutional power with- 
out the aid of the judiciary, and with no other argument than 
burnished steel and the cannon's roar. I frankly confesss 



ARGUMENT. 



11 



that my reading of our history, under the existing govern- 
ment, dispells all fear that the Union is destined at any early 
clay to fall into ruin from the weakness of its powers, or 
from the centrifugal force of State Rights,or State Soveignty. 
And from my observation of the disposition of our people, 
and of the tendency of their affections to entwine themselves 
around the colosal structure of the Federal Government, in 
preference to the municipal establishments of mere State 
Governments, and then the power of party influence, which 
rises so far above State questions, and is governed by the 
movement of affairs on the more exalted theatre of federal 
politics — when I consider all these, I am constrained to feel 
that the danger is, not that the Union will be dissolved, but 
that the Union itself will dissolve the power of the States. 
If State Sovereignty were as deeply enshrined in the hearts of 
the American people, as is the practical sovereignty of the 
Union — if State powers were as securely fortified by popu- 
lar opinion and by party influence, and by those great ele- 
ments of National strength and irresistable power with which 
the feeblest administration of the federal authority is in- 
vested, I should have better hopes of the perpetuity of Ame- 
rican liberty. We talk familiarly about dissolving the 
Union, as though its organization possessed, within itself, 
a provision for its peaceable destruction, by a mode other 
than that of revolution. And the cry about dissolving the 
Union — the threat on the one hand, and the pathetic cry of 
danger on the other — are daily digging deeper the founda- 
tions of its supremacy, than were those of the palace of the 
Caesars, and daily rendering the surrounding instruments of 
its power more irresistable than were all the legions of Rome. 
The tendency of the times is towards a centralization of 
power — consolidation and despotism of the Union. It gains 
strength with years ; but it is not so with the States. They 
lose as the other gains. And the statesman who could 
mark out a course of policy by which this process of absorp- 
tion on the one hand and depletion on the other, could be 



12 



ARGUMENT. 



arrested and put it into effect, would deserve a monument 
by the side of the heroes who won Independence by- the 
Revolution. And he would be a Patriot indeed, who in these 
times could infuse into the minds of our people the same 
devotion to the Sovereignty of the State, which they feel 
and cherish for that majestic arch of power which stands 
with one foot on the shore of the Atlantic and the other on 
that of the Pacific. These things I speak of as they are. 
I make no war upon the Union myself. In its original purity, 
with only the just powers with which it was invested by its 
patriot founders — which was by no means small in them- 
selves — I am devoted to it ; and I would have the people of 
this day to love it, as well as did our conscript fathers, but 
not better. And I would have them to feel always that they 
are citizens of a Sovereign State, as well as of the United 
States, and love the sovereignty of their States as Jefferson 
did the sovereignty of Virginia. Nay, I would have them, 
with all due love to both State and Union, to love with par- 
amount devotion those liberties and rights which are dearer 
than the forms and fabrics which are intended to contain 
them. And my remedy, I am free to say, is to try and cor- 
rect and reform abuses, and not to overthrow governments, 
J until those causes of revolution come which justify human 
nature in falling back' upon its original rights. Sufficient 
unto the day will be the evil thereof, as to these. They can- 
not be defined or provided for in advance. They lie hidden 
among the unrevealed destinies of the future, as yet unde- 
veloped by the providence of God. True as these observa- 
tions are, there is, nevertheless, gathering upon the Northern 
horizon one cloud portentous of a disruption of the Union. 
It is a cloud already larger than a man's hand. It collects with 
fearful rapidity all the instruments of destruction, and it may 
contain the elements of a storm whose fury, when it shall burst 
upon us, shall be too fierce for that powerful federal edifice, 
of which I have spoken, to withstand. It is the danger of the 
accession of the Black Republican Party to the control of 



ARGUMENT. 



13 



this Government. If that takes place and the result of it 
shall be, as I trust it may be, that the South in the common 
calamity, shall cease to be torn into bickering party strife, 
and shall unite in a strong determination to stand true to 
itself, the Union may not survive the conflict. But so great 
is my fear of the vast power of the Union, when it shall be 
tried, even in that extremity, that I would rather trust our 
destiny to a prevention of this impending calamity, which 
the moral and political power of a united South might effect. 
I would rather see that dangerous sectional organization de- 
feated and crushed, before they are fortified and entrenched 
within the departments of the federal government, and be- 
fore they hold the sword in one hand, and the purse in the 
other. I would rather prevent their triumph, than take the 
perilous risk of being redeemed after we have become their 
captives. But can the South be united for such a conflict ? 
either to prevent the domination of that organization, or to 
redeem herself from it, when it is fastened upon her ? Is it 
not a dream — that "united South," which ardent minds 
have pictured to themselves ? Shall we not always contend 
and war with each other, and wrestle over the crumbs and 
morsels of emolument and honor, which fall in our midst ? 
And will it not be so till the chain of the oppressor shall 
" unite" us ? 

But I am indulging too far in this digression. The con- 
nexion which the Slave Trade, and every other Southern 
question has with the subject of the Union, naturally led me 
to these reflections. I wish it were otherwise in the nature 
of things. I wish that a question of a Southern nature 
could be practically considered upon its own merits, without 
involving the subject of Union or disunion. But such is the 
fate of the South, and every question of Southern interest 
must be viewed in these relations. 

I proceed to inquire into the merits of the proposed pro- 
ject of re-opening that traffic, with reference first to the con- 
stitutional question involved in the controversy, and in the 



14 



ARGUMENT. 



second place, with reference to the advantages proposed by 
its advocates, and the disadvantages and evils which it ap- 
pears to me will result from its adoption. These latter 
branches of the question will in some sort run into each 
other. This is the simplest and most perspicuous plan of 
the argument, and will afford latitude enough for a satisfac- 
tory survey of the whole ground. 

The clause of the Constitution which refers particularly 
to this subject is in the following words : " The migration 
or importation of such persons, as the States now existing, 
shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the 
Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and 
eight, but a tax or duty may be laid on such importation, 
not exceeding ten dollars for each person." This is the pro- 
vision usually referred to in recent discussions of this matter, 
and it would seem that the impression has become somewhat 
prevalent, that this clause constitutes the foundation of the 
Congressional power over the Slave Trade. Hence it has 
been argued, that as the language of this clause is restrict- 
ive in its terms, and merely prohibitory of the exercise of 
interdicting the traffic for a period of time, it cannot be re- 
lied on as containing a grant of such power, at the expira- 
tion of the time limited. That it imports no grant of sub- 
stantive power, but merely a limitation of power, and that 
no power can arise by implication out of the negative words 
of prohibition. This reasoning proceeds upon sound princi- 
ples of logic and construction, but there is a defect in the 
premises, and consequently the conclusion arrived at, is erro- 
neous. That defect of the premises consists in taking it for 
granted, that this clause is the only constitutional provision 
relating to the question. If this was true, it must occur to 
the mind of him who reasons upon it in that view, that this 
provision is singularly absurd. For, why limit a power 
which had not been granted ? What sense was there in say- 
ing, that Congress shall not prohibit this importation prior 
to the year 1808, if without such negative words of restric- 



ARGUMENT. 



15 



tion, Congress could not prohibit it, before or after that time. 
We cannot impute such absurdity to the sagacious framers. 
The recognition of the power is so clearly manifest in this 
provision, that we are led to conclude, either that they in- 
tended to convey the power by the clause itself, or that it 
had reference to a power granted in some other provision of 
the instrument. That they intended to convey it by the 
clause itself, is scarcely probable for two reasons : In the 
first place, this clause is not found classed with the grants of 
power. The 8th Section of the 1st Article embodies an 
enumeration of all the powers granted to Congress, and con- 
cludes with the auxiliary grant of power " to make all laws 
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into exe- 
cution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by 
this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or 
in any department or office thereof." And then follows im- 
mediately in the 9th Section, the prohibitions upon the pow- 
ers contained in the 8th Section. The very first of these 
prohibitions is the clause in question, followed by many other 
prohibitory provisions, running through the whole of the 
9th and 10th Sections. Now this power to prohibit the im- 
portation of slaves was certainly no inconsiderable power. 
It is not reasonable to infer that it was considered so small 
in itself, that it might flow as an incident to the restrictive 
words limiting the time. The power, in its nature, was of 
vast magnitude. It was one which the States had not sur- 
rendered by the previous Confederation. It was one which 
they had been expressly exercising in their separate Legis- 
latures. It therefore involved a grant to Congress of im- 
portant power, upon a most important subject. Is it reason- 
able that it should have been intended, that these prohibito- 
ry words — these terms of negation — should convey it by 
mere logical inference ? And is it reasonable that the grant 
should have been classed among limitations and restrictions ? 
In the second place, it is not probable that they so intended, 
because this is not the form and style of the words employed 



16 



ARGUMENT. 



by them, in making other important grants of power to the 
Congress. The very nature of the system they were form- 
ing — which was a system composed of powers surrendered 
and imparted by the separate States — limited in their very 
nature— forbids the idea. No men ever understood better what 
they were doing. None ever knew better the force of legal 
and constitutional language. None knew better than they, 
that powers did not spring from words of negation. And 
no one now knows better than they knew, that if they had 
really intended in their minds to convey this power to Con- 
gress, by these words — that intention would have failed, be- 
cause it was not supported by the words. Intention is the 
great rule of interpretation, but it is only a rule of inter- 
pretation. It is not to be carried so far as to make that the 
law, which they intended to make, but neglected or failed to 
make. And I am free to confess, that if these words are 
the only foundation of the power, that power, though in- 
tended to be granted, was not granted, and is unconstitu- 
tional. 

But arc these words the only foundation for the power ? 
They evidently refer to the power which they restrict. They 
are of much force in this investigation, for they demonstrate 
beyond all question, that the power over this subject, was 
recognized by the framers of the Constitution, as being con- 
tained in the instrument. What then does that clear recog- 
nition have reference to ? Beyond all doubt, to some of the 
grants contained in the section preceding. To that grant 
of power " to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and 
among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." This 
is the clause that contains the power : it is no incidental or 
implied power ; it is no implication from prohibitory words ; 
it is the living spirit of a specific grant. Fortunately for us, 
we are not without the light of contemporaneous history 
and contemporaneous construction upon this point. The 
provision relating to the limitation of time, within which the 
power should not be exerted, gave rise to facts, and is con- 



ARGUMENT. 



17 



nected with circumstances, which throw a flood of light upon 
this question. In the Convention the attempt was made to 
except the Slave Trade from the general power over foreign 
commerce. The first draft of the Constitution as presented 
by the committee of five, contained the prohibition in these 
words : " No tax or duty shall be laid, &c, on the migration 
or importation of such persons as the several States shall think 
proper to admit : nor shall such migration or importation 
be prohibited." This was voted down by eight States 
against three — the three being the two Carolinas and Geor- 
gia. The matter was then referred to another committee, 
composed of one delegate from each State, with a view of 
harmonizing conflicting sentiments ; and they reported it in 
its present shape, except that the time limited was " one 
thousand eight hundred." which was amended by adding 
the words " and eight :" and thus it was adopted, by a vote of 
seven States to four. The bold stand taken by the dele- 
gates from Georgia and South Carolina, when the absolute 
prohibition as first reported by the committee of detail was 
voted down, caused the appointment of the committee of one 
from each State ; and the provision as reported back by them 
was a compromise effected in the following manner, as is set 
forth by Luther Martin, in his celebrated speech before the 
Legislature of Maryland in opposition to the Constitution : 
" This was rejected by eight States — Georgia, South Car- 
olina, and I think North Carolina voting for it," (alluding 
to the absolute prohibition of power, as first proposed.) 
" We were then told by the delegates of the two first of 
these States, that their States would never agree to a sys- 
tem which put it in the power of the General Government 
to prevent the importation of Slaves, &c. A committee of 
one member from each State was chosen by ballot to take 
this part of the system into consideration, and to endeavor 
to agree upon some report which should reconcile those 
States ; to this committee was also referred the following 
proposition which had been reported by the committee of 
2 



18 



ARGUMENT. 



detail, to-wit : No navigation act shall be passed without 
the assent of two-thirds of the members present in each 
House — a proposition which the staple and commercial 
States were solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should 
be placed too much under the power of the Eastern States, 
but which these last States were as anxious to reject. This 
committee, of which I had the honor to be a member, met and 
took under their consideration the subjects committed to them. 
I found the Eastern States, notwithstanding their aversion 
to Slavery, were very willing to indulge the Southern States, 
at least with a temporary liberty to prosecute the Slave 
Trade, provided the Southern States would in their turn 
gratify them by laying no restriction on navigation acts ; 
and after a very little time, the committee, by a great major- 
ity, agreed on a report by which the General Government 
was to be prohibited from preventing the importation of 
Slaves for a limited time, and the restrictive clause relative 
to navigation acts was to be omitted. This report was 
adopted by a majority of the Convention, but not without 
considerable opposition." 

Thus it appears that the little indulgence which Georgia 
and South Carolina procured, of twenty years, for the 
Slave Trade, was procured by a compromise, and that com- 
promise was effected in the committee by the aid of the cir- 
cumstance of a conflict relative to the proposition in regard 
to the subject of navigation acts. Even then it met with 
considerable opposition upon being submitted to the Conven- 
tion. This arose from the fact of the strong opposition 
which was felt by most of the States to the Slave Trade. 
Most of them had already prohibited the traffic by State 
legislation. It had even been a cause of grievance before 
the Declaration of Independence, that Great Britain con- 
tinued to force the traffic upon the unwilling Colonies. In 
the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, this 
was specified in that array of Royal iniquities set forth in 
that imperishable paper in these words : (after denouncing 



ARGUMENT. 19 

the Slave Trade in such language as Jefferson alone could 
employ) " he has prostituted his negative for suppressing 
every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this exe- 
crable commerce." This was struck out in deference to 
those States who were still in favor of that commerce. All 
this will serve to show the state of this question prior to the 
Convention, and at the time. It was one, about which, there 
existed profound concern. Is it likely, then, that the Con- 
vention were framing the Constitution with loose ideas upon 
this point ? Were they leaving the power, which was so 
necessary to be conferred on Congress for its extinction, to 
be derived from uncertain implications ? But Mr. Martin 
says the clause as finally adopted was not without consider- 
able opposition. And on this point he shows what view was 
entertained of the power conferred by the clause " to regu- 
late commerce with foreign nations." He says " it was urg- 
ed that, by this system we were giving the General Grovern- 
ment full and absolute power to regulate commerce, under 
which power it would have a right to restrain or totally pro- 
hibit the Slave Trade ; it must therefore appear to the world 
absurd and disgraceful to the last degree, that we should 
except from the exercise of that power the only branch of 
commerce which is unjustifiable in its nature and contrary 
to the rights of mankind — that, on the contrary, we ought 
rather to prohibit expressly in our Constitution the further 
importation of Slaves, &c." The power to prohibit it after 
the time limited was denied by none. Some even desired it 
to be prohibited by the Constitution itself, and not merely 
left to the discretion of Congress — he among the number. 
And had it not been for the compromise above alluded to, 
the power of Congress without limitation of time, would 
have been absolute, or else the Constitution would have con- 
tained an express interdiction. 

The next authority which I propose to adduce, to prove 
that this is no ambiguous power, is that of Mr. Mad- 
ison. In one of his luminous articles, Number 42 of 



20 



ARGUMENT. 



the Federalist, he says : " The second class of powers 
lodged in the General Government consists of those which 
regulate the intercourse with foreign nations, to-wit: to 
make treaties, &c, &c, to regulate commerce, including 
a power to prohibit, after the year 1808, the importation of 
Slaves, and to lay an intermediate duty of ten dollars per 
head, as a discouragement to such importations." In the 
same No. he says: "It were doubtless to be wished that the 
power of prohibiting the importation of Slaves had not been 
postponed until the year 1808, or rather that it had been 
suffered to have immediate operation." Story, in his Com- 
mentaries on the Constitution, Vol. 2, § 1337, says, in re- 
ference to the clause in the 9th section: "This clause of 
the Constitution, respecting the importation of Slaves, is 
manifestly an exception from the power of regulating com- 
merce. Migration seems appropriately to apply to volun- 
tary arrivals, as importation does to involuntary arrivals ; 
and so far as an exception from a power, proves its exist- 
ence, this proves that the power to regulate commerce ap- 
plies equally to the regulation of vessels employed in trans- 
porting men who pass from place to place voluntarily, as to 
those who pass involuntarily." 

Chancellor Kent, Vol. 1. page 180, observes : " The Con- 
stitution of the United States laid the foundation of a se- 
ries of provisions, to put a final stop to the progress of this 
great moral pestilence, by admitting a power in Congress to 
prohibit the importation of Slaves, after the expiration of 
the year 1807. Prior to that time, Congress did all on this 
subject that it was within their competence to do." — 
This last sentence refers to acts of Congress, passed at an 
early day after the adoption of the Constitution, upon kin- 
dred subjects to that of the importation of Slaves. And 
these acts were passed under the powers contained in the 
clause, respecting the regulation of commerce. They were 
passed too by the early statesman, many of whom were 
members of the Convention. By the acts of March 22d, 



ARGUMENT. 



21 



1794, and May 10th, 1800, the citizens of the United 
States and residents within them, were prohibited from en- 
gaging in the transportation of Slaves from the United 
States, to any foreign place or country, or from one foreign 
place to another. These provisions prohibited our citizens 
from all concern in the Slave Trade, with the exception of 
direct importation into the United States ; and the most 
prompt and early steps were taken within the limits of the 
Constitution, to interdict that part of the traffic also. These 
latter are the act of 1807, prohibiting the importation of 
Slaves into the United States, under severe penalties ; the 
act of 1818 increasing the penalties, and extending the pro- 
hibition, not only to importations into the United States, but 
generally against any citizen of the United States, being 
concerned in the Slave Trade ; the act of 1819, authorizing 
national armed vessels to be sent to the coast of Africa, to 
stop the Trade, so far as our citizens were engaged in it, and 
subjecting their vessels and effects to seizure and confisca- 
tion ; and finally the act of 1820, which went still farther, 
and made it punishable as piracy. These last acts have been 
recently assailed as unconstitutional, by eminent Southern 
men ; and of course if these are unconstitutional, so must 
be those of 179-1 and 1800. It would seem to be sufficient 
to say that they were passed at an early day, and by men 
who ought to have known the extent of their powers, as 
many of them were the framers of the Constitution itself. 
The Courts have adjudicated cases arising under these stat- 
utes, and recognized their validity — see the case of the Ma- 
rine in the 9th Wheaton. 

The ground upon which these acts were attacked as un- 
constitutional in the recent Montgomery Convention, was 
that they are unequal in their operation upon the interests 
of the States. That they failed to lay any restraint, or pro- 
hibition upon the immigration of white laborers to the North, 
and that that immigration increased the power and added to 
the wealth of that section, while these prohibitions of the 



22 



ARGUMENT. 



Slave Trade, cut off from the South importations of negro 
laborers, and thereby prevented us from that accession to 
our political power, and to our wealth. This objection, it 
seems to me, if worth anything at all, should have been 
made before the Convention which formed the Constitution, 
or before the State Conventions which ratified and adopted 
it. If it proves anything, it proves too much ; it proves 
that the Constitution was wrong. If we make much more 
progress in statesmanship and political science, it will per- 
haps be discovered that the Constitution itself is unconsti- 
tutional; for, certainly, in its operation over a country so 
diversified as ours, it cannot be always perfectly equal in 
every practical consequence and result. No system of im- 
ports was ever yet so adjusted as to come up to this rule of 
constitutional equality ; there never was perfect evenness 
in its operations upon every State. The Post Office system, 
on this ground, must be likewise set aside as unconstitution- 
al, for there are more offices, and more routes and fatter 
contracts in some States than others. The distribution of 
Executive patronage, which is done by virtue of the same 
constitutional system, is all unconstitutional on the same 
ground, for it is never perfectly equal among the sections, 
the States or the people. Suppose an act was passed legal- 
izing and re-opening the Slave Trade, might not the free- 
soil States of New England, where they have no negro 
slavery, and could not profitably maintain it, if they would, 
complain that the traffic worked inequality to them, by inur- 
ing exclusively to the benefit of the Southern States ? 
Then, the act would be unconstitutional. I am the advocate 
of equality among the States ; equality of Sovereignty, of 
rights and of legislation as far as is practicable ; but I can- 
not go that far. I think if that idea had been a funda- 
mental one with our ancestors, in the sense of this objec- 
tion, it would have defeated all efforts to establish the Union. 
The true rule of equality, which is to govern Congress in 
the exercise of the power regulating commerce with foreign 



« 



ARGUMENT. 



23 



nations, and among the States, is laid down by the Consti- 
tution itself. It was not left to conjecture, or to such con- 
sequences as might arise from the inevitable course of trade, 
under any regulation of a general nature, which in many 
instances could not be foreseen, and then would require the 
workings of experience to decide upon its constitutionality, 
or unconstitutionality ; and which in other instances would 
vary with the changing course of commercial affairs, and 
thereby a measure equal at the time of its adoption, become 
unequal under a change of circumstances. A safer and bet- 
ter rule than that vague and changeable test of equality 
was prescribed, and if a regulation comes up to it, there is 
an end of the dispute about its equality of operation. Here 
is the rule : "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles ex- 
ported from any State. No preference shall be given by any 
regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State 
over those of another ; nor shall vessels bound to or from 
one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in anoth- 
er." If these acts violate this provision, they are uncon- 
stitutional on the ground of inequality. The wisdom of 
prescribing such a test, is manifest in every view we can take 
of it. It would be extremely unreasonable to say, that a 
law, general in its terms, and relating to the commerce of 
the entire country, should be subjected to the trial of expe- 
rience, to ascertain whether or not it would work out with 
perfect equality upon the diversified interests of every sec- 
tion and every State, and then after the trial, that it should 
be decided, that it was constitutional or unconstitutional ; 
and equally unreasonable if, from the inevitable diversity of 
interests, it should not prove equal in its applicability to 
these sections or States, to declare it unconstitutional. — 
This would destroy all legislation. And see in what a con- 
tradictory way that test would be applied in reference to 
the very measures under consideration. There is a large 
class of Northern people, who regard the influx of the for- 
eign population as an evil to the North. As great an evil 



24 



ARGUMENT. 



to them, in the estimation of some, as the influx of wild Af- 
ricans would be in the estimation of others, into the South. 
Now, might they not complain that these regulations of com- 
merce which exclude African importation upon the South, 
and leave open their ports to th" influx of the foreign popu- 
lation, are unjust to the North and unequal in their opera- 
tion ? Might not the Northern laborer say, you pour upon 
us the laboring population from Europe and reduce the 
wages of our labor; whereas, in the South, you exclude the 
importation of African Slave labor, and thereby keep up 
the wages of labor in the South ? These illustrations are 
sufficient to show that there is no other test of equality, 
which can properly be applied, but that one which the Con- 
stitution has fixed for itself. 

And here, perhaps, I might close the investigation of that 
branch of the subject relating to the constitutionality of the 
power of Congress, and the alleged unconstitutionality of 
those acts passed in pursuance of that power. But there 
are some other considerations growing out of this question 
of constitutional power, which are important in their bear- 
ing upon this policy, and upon the destiny of the South, as 
it stands connected with it. 

Those who have raised this question of constitutionality, 
and who have assailed the legislation of Congress on that 
ground, have seemed to regard the repeal of these laws as 
simply a removal of all obstacles out of the way of such 
State legislation on the subject, as any State might desire to 
make. It was ingeniously stated, by one of very great 
ability in the last Southern Convention, that he did not ask 
of Congress the re-establishment of the Slave Trade ; but 
simply a repeal of the odious acts upon their statute book 
suppressing it, that it might then be regulated by the sup- 
ply and demand of Slave labor. Now, by this proposition 
it was either meant, that, when these obstructions were re- 
moved, the States should separately legislate upon the ques- 
tion according to their own respective views of its expedien- 



ARGUMENT. 



25 



cy, Us an open question, and re-establish the Trade or not, as 
each State might determine for itself, or else that the repeal 
of these acts would leave the trade already open, without 
State legislation permitting it, and that it should be left to 
regulate itself by the commercial rules of supply and de- 
mand, as any other branch of lawful commerce. What the 
real import of this proposition was, will perhaps be better 
understood by examining what would be the legal conse- 
quences of the repeal thus demanded. The distinction at- 
tempted to be drawn between a repeal by Congress of the 
Federal Statutes, and an actual re-establishment of the 
Trade by Congress, although there may be technically and 
theoretically a legal distinction, is, to all practical intents 
and purposes, a distinction without a difference. It cannot 
be denied that the repeal of those acts will open the traffic 
es instant^ and without one word affirmatively authorizing 
it in the repealing act, as to all the States where Slavery 
exists, and where there does not exist any statute (or con- 
stitutional provision) of the State, prohibiting it within its 
limits. Those who imagine that it would require an express 
act by any State authorizing the traffic, before it could be 
engaged in by the people of that State, after the laws of 
Congress are repealed, greatly mistake the law of the case. 
Under the law of nations, the Slave Trade is recognized as a 
legitimate branch of commerce to all countries which do not 
prohibit it, by express municipal law, or treaty. And the 
citizens of a country whose municipal laws or treaties do 
not prohibit it, cannot be obstructed in the traffic, by the 
laws of those countries which do prohibit it. In other words, 
if the acts of Congress were now repealed, the people of the 
Southern States, where no State statute or Constitution in- 
hibits the introduction of Slaves, could not be prohibited or 
obstructed in the free enjoyment of this traffic by the mu- 
nicipal laws or Conventions of Great Britain, France, or 
any other foreign power. For the laws of other nations 
could only operate, where their municipal jurisdiction ex- 



26 



ARGUMENT. 



tended, consistently with the theory of public law, to the 
persons of their own citizens, or those found within their 
limits, or on board their vessels. These principles are well 
settled by the judgments of the highest British and Ameri- 
can Courts. In the case of the Diana, which was a Swedish 
vessel, and the Le Louis, which was a French vessel, captur- 
ed as Slavers, the High Court of Admiralty in England af- 
firmed these principles. And in the case of Madrazo vs. 
Willes, the Court of King's Bench held the same doctrine, 
declaring "that the British Statutes against the Slave 
Trade were only applicable to British subjects, and only 
rendered the Slave Trade unlawful when carried on by them. 
The British Parliament could not prevent the subjects of 
other States from carrying on the Trade out of the limits of 
the British dominions. If a ship be acting contrary to the 
general law of nations, she is thereby subject to condemna- 
tion ; but it is impossible to say that the Slave Trade was 
contrary to the general law of nations." In the case of the 
Antelope, the Supreme Court of the United States held the 
same principles, and declared that it was not piracy, except 
so far as it was made so by the treaties or statutes of the 
nation to which the party belonged. It might still be car- 
ried on by the subjects of those nations, who have not pro- 
hibited it by municipal acts or treaties. See 10. Wheaton 
66. So that it is clear, when these acts of our Congress are 
repealed, this Trade will not only not be prohibited to us, 
nor obstructed by the codes of other powers, but will be 
open and free under the lata of nations, and no more depen- 
dent upon a State law to authorize or open it, than is any 
other branch of lawful commerce. The authority for it will 
not be required to consist of an express municipal law, es- 
tablishing it, or expressly permitting it to be carried on. 
It will only require, that passive permission which will arise 
from the fact that it is not prohibited by our municipal acts 
or treaties. That is all the test that the law of nations will 
apply to it, and all that will be applied in any civilized Court 



ARGUMENT. 



27 



in the world, for so generally did this traffic prevail in past 
centuries, and so intimately did it become interwoven with 
the customs and commerce of the world, that it grew to be a 
recognized branch of the trade and commerce of nations, 
under the code of public law. 

The real meaning, then, of the proposition to repeal the 
acts of Congress on this subject is, that this traffic shall 
thereby be opened and re-established. That would, as I 
have shown, be the legal consequences; and it would be no 
more than justice to the sagacity of those eminent minds 
who have suggested the repeal of these laws, as a just and 
proper measure to the South, to attribute tofthem, a sa pur- 
pose, that which is so evidently a result and sequence of the 
measure proposed. 

This repeal, then, of the Federal statutes, would open the 
Slave Trade upon all the Slave States which had not passed 
laws interdicting it before the adoption of the Constitution, 
or such as have prohibited the importation of Slaves within 
their limits by statutes or constitutional provision since. It 
will be remembered, too, that these prohibitory acts of the 
States, since the adoption of the Constitution, which refer- 
red to the importation of Slaves into the State from other 
States, have not in their terms ever gone so far as to pro- 
hibit the importation of negroes, when brought in for the use of 
the importer and not for speculation. This is the extent to 
which they have gone, always containing a saving in behalf 
of any citizen of the State, or any who may remove in with 
the view of becoming citizens ; allowing such to import for 
their own use as many slaves as they see proper. A law 
like this, it is evident, would not be much in the way of the 
Slave Trade, as they have never had a tendency in the 
States which have adopted them, really to diminish, to any 
great extent, the number of negroes brought in. So that 
if the Slave Trade was now opened by the repeal of the 
laws of Congress, any State which desired to prohibit it ef- 
fectually within its limits, and to prevent the negroes im- 



28 



ARGUMENT. 



ported from being brought in, would be compelled to go 
much farther in its legislation than these State laws have 
yet gone. It would be compelled to enact that no citizen 
should hold an imported African Slave within its limits. 
And this would involve the necessity of discriminating be- 
tween native American negroes and foreign-born negroes, 
which it is easy to perceive would be a very impracticable 
thing. For after an African had been held a few years in 
another State which permitted the Trade, it would be diffi- 
cult to distinguish him from other negroes which might be 
brought into the State. And then again, the native, born 
descendants of the imported Africans would be less distin- 
guishable ; so that the conclusion is, the only way the op- 
posing State could protect itself in its Anti-Slave-Trade 
policy, and avoid being made a market and receptacle of 
these Africans, and thereby made to encourage the traffic 
itself, would be to go to the extreme length of prohibiting 
its citizens from bringing in for their own use, or persons 
migrating from the other States with negroes from bringing 
in any negroes at all. Now, is it supposable that such a law 
would be tolerated by the people of any State ? Would not 
such a law be ruinous to the interest of a State, and would 
it not be utterly unconstitutional as between Slave-holding 
States, being a denial by one State to the citizens of the 
other States, of the privilege of holding within its limits 
property which its own citizens were allowed to hold ? 
Again, if some of the States were favorable to the importa- 
tion of Africans, and others opposed to it, the increase 
of negroes in those favorable to it would reduce the price 
of negro property there, and in that way cause negroes 
to flow from the States which encouraged the traffic, to those 
opposed to it ; so that if the single State of South Carolina 
favored the Trade, and all the rest of the Southern States 
opposed it, the inevitable result would be, that South Caro- 
lina would supply all the other States with negroes, and the 
whole South would be filled with negroes imported into South 



ARGUMENT. 



29 



Carolina, and there Americanized we will say, and thence, 
by the unavoidable course of trade, transferred into States 
where they would command a higher price. So that really, 
while one single Southern State allowed the traffic, the whole 
South would be inevitably drawn into it, and affected by it. 
The idea, therefore, of leaving the question open to each 
State, to decide for itself, and allow or prohibit the traffic as 
it might deem expedient or inexpedient, is a fallacious no- 
tion. The whole South would be at the will of a single 
State, which might be rash enough to engage in it, and the 
prohibitions of the balance, while they failed to effect their 
own object, would only make the traffic more profitable to 
the State which had the monopoly. Neither would it be ma- 
terial, whether or not that single State was on the coast or 
in the interior of the country, for the right of importing 
through the other States could not be prohibited, on the 
same principle that a Carolinian is protected in his Slave 
property, while in transitu, in any free State. These con- 
siderations derive additional force from the further reflec- 
tion, that all the efforts hitherto made, by any of the Slave 
States, to check or prohibit the free interchange of Slave 
property, have proved abortive, and always will. For if 
negroes are kept out by such laws in Georgia, for example, 
until the price of negroes in Georgia is much higher than in 
Virginia or South Carolina, the people of Georgia will al- 
ways do as they have heretofore, violate the law by common 
consent, and repeal it as soon as it begins to be felt as op- 
posed to a course of profitable purchase and trade. So it 
has been with similar laws interfering with the inter-State 
Trade in Slaves, in other States, and so will it ever be. 
Indeed it is well known that all such laws, which interfere 
with the free trade and commerce among the Slave States, 
in Slaves, are regarded by the people as an improper inter- 
ference, by government, with their private interests, and as 
well might you attempt to dam up the waters of the Nile 
with bulrushes as to enforce them. Free Trade among the 



30 



ARGUMENT. 



States was a fundamental condition of the confederacy : and 
when "the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations 
and among the States, was vested in Congress by the Con- 
stitution, and that power guarded by the further provision 
already quoted, it was to secure as far as possible that commer- 
cial equality and freedom of inter-State trade which was so es- 
sential to their mutual prosperity, and which, under the old 
confederation, was so liable to interruption by the the conflict- 
ing legislation of the States. Every exception to this freedom 
of trade among the States, is, to that extent, in contravention 
of this fundamental policy, and can only be justified upon 
principles of police, necessity and self-preservation. It is 
upon these principles alone, that the legislation of any 
State, which threw any obstacles in the way of foreign com- 
merce through its ports, or in the way of inter- State com- 
merce through its borders, has ever been sustained; and 
the difficulty and laborious discussion, and dissenting opin- 
ions of Judges, which have sprung out of cases arising 
under these laws, have demonstrated the obscurity in which 
the true line of constitutional distinction is involved on 
these subjects, as any one can see by reading the series of 
cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, from Gib- 
bons vs. Ogden, down to those of Norris vs. the City of 
Boston and Smith vs. Turner. The objection to these State 
laws under which the cases referred to have arisen, has been 
that they interrupt the freedom of trade and commerce. 
The ground taken against their validity has been, that "the 
power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among 
the States" given to Congress by the Constitution, is exclu- 
sive of all concurrent power in the States over the same sub- 
jects. This was the great point in the celebrated case of 
Gibbon vs. Ogden above alluded to, which was decided by 
Chief Justice Marshall, and in which the general prin- 
ciple that the power in Congress is an exclusive power is 
well affirmed. How far this general principle is to be ap- 
plied, to such regulations as the States might make inrela- 



ARGUMENT. 



31 



tion to the Slave Trade among themselves, is a question 
which, though often alluded to in these cases, has not been 
pointedly decided, that I am aware of. In Groves vs. 
Slaughter, which went up from the State of Louisiana — and 
which was a case involving the validity of the provision in 
the Mississippi Constitution inhibiting the importation of 
Slaves for sale — the question was made in the argument; 
Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, both of whom were of counsel 
for defendant in error, contending, with great energy, that 
the clause alluded to was unconstitutional, because it was 
an infringement by the State of the exclusive power over 
commerce vested in Congress. The Court, however, found 
it convenient to base their judgment upon another point in 
the case, and did not decide this point. It was, however, a 
subject of dissension among them, and after the judgment 
was pronounced by Judge Thompson, without giving any 
opinion upon it, others of the Court expressed their individ- 
ual opinions on it, differing widely from each other. It was 
acknowledged and felt to be a point of dangerous import, 
and the same diversity of opinion which manifested itself in 
that case has been exhibited in subsequent adjudications, 
whenever the question has been incidentally involved. I 
think the true solution of the question will be found to con- 
sist in the distinction already mentioned, which seems to be 
recognized in all these cases, and in the writings of Kent 
and Story on the commercial power of Congress — the dis- 
tinction between the regulation of commerce, and those 
police regulations which are conceded to be within the pow- 
ers of the States, as well as that power over the strictly 
internal commerce of a State within its limits, which neces- 
sarily belongs to the sovereignty of the State. And upon 
this ground I do not doubt, when the question is made be- 
tween Southern States or the citizens of Southern States, 
on any regulation of a State, made to exclude the influx of 
Slaves from Africa or from other States, that it will be de- 
cided in favor of the State law, if it is found to be based 



32 



ARGUMENT. 



upon principles of police and self-preservation ; but if 
based upon purely commercial principles, it must be regard- 
ed as a question of much delicacy and uncertainty. And if 
the power of the States to make laws excluding the impor- 
tation and sale of negroes, be maintained and firmly estab- 
lished upon principles of police or on other grounds, and 
the policy and legislation of the Slave States should be 
opposed to each other on the subject of the African Trade — 
some desiring to encourage it and others opposed to it — it is 
manifest that the growing conflicts between them, which 
would follow the repeal of the acts of Congress, would be 
anything but advantageous to the harmony and prosperity 
of the South. This view illustrates vividly the wisdom of 
the Constitution in placing the power over the Slave Trade 
in Congress. 

There remains but one other consideration, appropriately 
belonging to the legal and constitutional division of the 
subject-matter, and that is as to the movements which 
have been proposed in the Legislatures of one or two of 
the Southern States, having for their object the re-opening 
of this forbidden traffic with Africa. Now, even if the laws 
of Congress were repealed, the powers of the State Legisla- 
tures will not thereby be increased. Over the subject of 
the African Slave Trade, as a branch of foreign commerce, 
the States in their individual capacity have no power, as we 
have seen, except such as may relate to police regulations 
and measures of self-protection — such, for instance, as would 
exclude the influx of this importation on the ground that it 
was a nuisance and an evil injurious to the safety and well- 
being of the State. This power would be confined in its 
nature to defensive measures — measures of exclusion and 
suppression — and could not embrace the power to promote or 
encourage the traffic by affirmative measures. Any law of 
a State for that purpose would deal with it as a matter pure- 
ly of foreign commerce, and not as a matter of police reg- 
ulation. This would not be within the exception recognized, 



ARGUMENT. 



33 



as limiting the great principle of exclusive power so clearly 
settled in the case of Gibbons vs. Ogden. It would there- 
fore be obnoxious to the objection of unconstitutionality. 
The repeal of the acts of Congress could not enlarge the 
exception as to police powers; it could not alter or repeal the 
Constitution. The power would remain where it was before. 
The acts of Congress being effaced, could not transfer the 
power to the States, which the Constitution has vested ex- 
clusively in Congress. Congress cannot divest itself of it. That 
would require an amendment of the Constitution. The 
States could get back the power they have surrendered, in 
no other way than by an amendment. Now, if this would 
be true in the absence of these Congressional laws, much 
more is it true when these laws are unrepealed. It follows, 
then, that all such measures as have been proposed in some 
State Legislatures, having for their object the encourage- 
ment and re-establishment of this traffic, are unconstitutional. 
Even if it were admitted that the States possessed concur- 
rent powers with the Federal Legislature over the subject, 
State laws must then yield to the Federal Legislation, for 
the Constitution declares that the Federal law shall be the 
supreme law of the land. Acts of the State in conflict with 
the Federal law, would be null and void, and could only be 
enforced by nullification and rebellion. These State mea- 
sures, then, if adopted in contravention of the acts of Con- 
gress, would be of a most pernicious nature. If the citizens 
of a State are induced by such measures to engage in the 
trade, they would be liable to punishment for the crime of 
piracy, and the State would be unable to rescue them, ex- 
cept by interposing its authority, in resistance of the author- 
ity of the United States. This would bring about revolu- 
tion. And it requires no foresight to tell that the result 
would be — that these deluded victims would be the sufferers, 
from the folly of such rash legislation. Neither will the 
expedient of the Apprentice system, which has been sug- 
gested in one State, obviate the difficulty or lessen the dan- 
3 



34 



ARGUMENT. 



ger of such a result. That is an evasion of the law, which 
would fail of securing an escape. The words of the Federal 
acts meet this modification. If the imported African " is 
held to labor or service" for a single day, his importation or 
migration is prohibited, and will involve every one concerned, 
in the crime and penalty of the law. It is sufficient to add, 
in respect to the Apprentice system, that if it is intended to 
be carried out in good faith, it is hostile to the policy of eve- 
ry Southern State, and ruinous to the interest of Slavery, 
as it would fill the Slave-holding States with the most mis- 
erable free negro population. And if it is to be a false pre- 
tention, and the Apprentices are to be held as slaves, it is 
not only liable to all the objections against the Slave Trade, 
but brands itself with the double infamy, both of violating 
the laws of Congress and perfidiously violating the faith of 
the State plighted to a barbarian negro. For the honor of 
the South, if this traffic is to be opened, let it be done in a 
maimer which will at least have the credit of boldness and 
good faith. Let not falsehood be its cover, and perfidy its 
instrument. I would rather see a Southern State driven into 
nullification and open heroic rebellion against Federal power, 
than to see it, through fear of Federal authority, hide itself 
in false pretences and perfidy. Of all the phases which 
this matter has yet assumed, the most revolting and humili- 
ating is that of importing Apprentices. France and Eng- 
land originated this most revolting form of Slavery and the 
Slave Trade. Let their philanthropists have the honor of it. 
It is unworthy the National character of the Slave-holding 
States of the South. 

1 This brings us to the question of expediency ; or the ad- 
vantages and disadvantages of the proposed policy, which I 
doubt not will be more interesting to the general reader 
than the discussion of legal and Constitutional points. 

The Slave Trade is proposed as a means of cheapening 
slave labor, and increasing the supply of it in the South. 
This, I suppose to be the chief advantage which is expected 



ARGUMENT. 



35 



to arise from it. It is said that the number of our negroes 
is not equal to the demand for slave labor — that lands are 
cheap and laborers few. The high price of negroes, it is 
said, evinces the necessity of a greater amount of slave la- 
bor. That the supply of cheap negroes from the African 
traffic would result in a rapid settlement and cultivation of 
the wild lands of the West, and at the same time enable the 
inhabitants of the old States, to reclaim their worn lands. 
That negro property being rendered cheap, all our people 
could become slave holders, and thus the institution be 
strengthened, &c, &c. 

Labor is like other valuable things in respect to its being 
cheap or high in price. It is influenced by supply and de- 
mand. If a country is so densely populated that there is a 
superabundant supply of labor, the consequence is it be- 
comes cheap. If the laborers are comparatively few, the 
price of labor will be high. The demand for labor in the 
South is great, and consequently the price is high. But why 
is the demand great ? Because the productiveness of labor is 
great. It is not because we are suffering for want of negro 
labor, that it is high. It is because negro labor is produc- 
tive of high profits. It is really an evidence of our pros- 
perity. It is any thing but an evil to complain of. And 
here is the great mistake that is made by the advocates of 
this policy, on this point. They set out by assuming, that 
the high price of negroes is a great calamity to be cured and 
remedied. They constantly clamor for cheap labor and cheap 
negroes. They may as well cry out against the high price 
of cotton and sugar and rice. They may as well take the 
ground, that the land in the country is too high, and that a 
general decline in prices of all property is a great desidera- 
tum to be attained. The price of negroes is at an equili- 
brium with the price of every thing else in the South. To 
bring down negroes, is to bring down cotton and land. The 
prices of all these go together. When cotton is low, negroes 
and land go low, and every interest in the South suffers de- 



36 



ARGUMENT. 



pression in a corresponding manner. But when cotton is 
high, land and negroes are high, and the business of the 
country in all its branches flourishes. It is a new idea to 
me, to be crying out against our very prosperity. Reduce 
negro labor — reduce its productiveness, which is the only 
way you can reduce its price — and you bring upon us univer- 
sal stagnation. And when you reduce the price of the ne- 
gro, you not only effect it, by reducing his productive value, 
but at the same time you bring reduction upon every thing 
else ; and it reaches in its depressing effects and sympathies 
the wages of the labor of the non-slaveholding inhabi- 
tants, thereby involving in the ruinous result all interests 
and all classes. The times of distress are when prices 
are low ; when negroes bring but half-price, and land 
and every other species of property is low in a correspond- 
ing degree. It is then that all classes suffer, except those 
whose business flourishes upon the misfortunes of the people. 
When was this discovery made, that low prices and cheap 
labor were the harbingers of prosperity ? Even in the North, 
where labor is free, it is anything else but an evidence of the 
prosperity of the country, that the wages of labor are low. 
And yet, that condition of cheap labor and low wages, which 
is the result of the disproportion of labor and capital, owing 
to the great density of their population, is actually presented 
as a proof of prosperity by the advocates of the African 
Slave Trade. In the Report of the Committee, which was 
read to the last Southern Convention, allusion is made to 
this subject in the following words : " So also is labor ne- 
cessary to the value of vested interests. In respect of such 
interests the South has been singularly unfortunate. At the 
North, men step to opulence. The foreign population poured 
upon that section has given progress to every line of busi- 
ness, and value to every article of property. Lands bought 
one year, are worth twice as much the next, and the people 
there — as values are such around them — have the comforts 
of wealth, and the further satisfaction of being regarded as 



ARGUMENT. 



37 



the most enterprising and judicious in existence. Not so 
with us. Here, there has been no wave of foreign power to 
raise the value of our vested interests. On the contrary, the 
wave of labor is continually gliding from us, and though our 
labor has been productive, our products abundant, there are 
many of us, in the older sections, who would fail to sell 
estates to-day for as much as was paid for them in market 
fifty years ago. This state of things would be altered by 
the foreign Slave Trade. That would give population, and 
population alone would necessarily advance the value of 
vested interests. For between population and the price of 
real interests at least, there is an intimate and necessary 
connexion. In the Southern States, where there are but 
twelve persons to the square mile, the average value is about 
six dollars to the acre. In the Northern States, where there 
are one hundred to the square mile, the average value is 
about fifty dollars to the acre. In England, where there are 
three hundred and thirty-three to the square mile, the value 
is about one hundred and seventy dollars per acre," &c. 
"And so it is that an increase in population gives a ne- 
cessary increase in the value of real property, and so it is 
also that an increase of competitors, will give a necessary 
increase in the value of every other matter that becomes the 
subject of a common want." 

This picture presents in a strong light the advantages of 
a dense population, and cheap labor. This condition of 
things arises from the vast disproportion between the vested 
interests or the real estate, and the population and labor. 
Now it is to be observed, that the advantages here spoken of 
are on the side of the capitalist — the proprietors of the 
vested interest — and not on the side of the wave of popula- 
tion, and the class of laborers who have contributed so much 
to the prosperity of the other class. The proportion of one 
hundred people to the square mile, would give to each, not 
quite six-and-half acres of land, if equally divided. The 
land, therefore, belongs to a small class of the population, 



38 



ARGUMENT. 



and these great advantages are all on their side. And as 
the country grows older and denser in population, that dis- 
proportion betwen these classes becomes greater, as it is in 
England, where there are three hundred and thirty-three peo- 
ple to the square mile, not two acres to the individual. And 
labor is still cheaper, and the value of vested interests great- 
er. This is prosperity to the small class of proprietors of 
the vested interests, but death to the masses of the people. 
Fifty dollars an acre, and the price doubling every year, as 
this report intimates, or one hundred and seventy dollars an 
acre, may be an advantage to the fortunate capitalists, but 
it is death to the other class. And cheap wages for the labor 
of that large class whose toil and sweat extracts its fruits 
from the soil, may benefit the landlord, but it grinds the ten- 
ant. This condition of things may enable the capitalists to 
step to opulence, but it makes the landless population step in 
the other direction. It keeps them all the time stepping 
lower and lower, as their wages decrease, and they realize 
to their sorrow the truth of the other faithful observation 
the writer of this Report, "that an increase in popu- 
lation gives a necessary increase in the value of real 
property," and also "that an increase of competitors will 
give a necessary increase in the value of every other mat- 
ter that becomes the subject of a common want.'' This 
is profoundly true of all the necessary means of subsistence — 
food, raiment and shelter from the pitiless storm. An in- 
crease of competitors, increases the price of all these, at the 
same time that the same cause reduces the wages of labor. 
The verification of this saying may be had in the crowded 
countries of Europe ; and a full exemplification of the 
benefits and prosperity of this state of things may be seen 
there. The owners of vested interests step to opulence, and 
the people — the masses of the population — are reaping the 
bitter fruits of cheap labor, and abundant labor, and high 
value of real estates, and the "increasing value of every 
other matter, which is the subject of a common want." To 



ARGUMENT. 



39 



them, a policy which offered to enhance that state of things, 
would be regarded in the light of famine and pestilence. 
It might be addressed with more favor to the class which 
enjoyed the possession of opulence and vested interests, pro- 
vided the governments under which they lived were strong 
enough to protect the land-holders against agrarianism. It 
is precisely this state of things which causes the wave of 
foreign population, which, according to the notion of this 
Report, has added such blessings to the North, to flow to 
this country. That wave is making its escape from an in- 
crease of population and cheapness of labor. They are fly- 
ing from the starvation which these causes have brought 
upon them. And the same causes are having their effect, to a 
limited degree, in the denser portions of the North. The 
population are flowing out into the North-west, and when 
all that country which now furnishes a refuge for their sur- 
plus population shall become filled up, and shall itself realize 
the benefits of high priced lands and cheap labor, they will 
contribute a wave, which will turn Southward and bring upon 
us the same state of things. 

The author of this Report might have gone a step farther 
with his argument ; he might have said that this prosperous 
condition of things, as he is pleased to consider it at the 
North, is incompatible with the existence of Slavery. These 
very causes of dense population and cheap labor abolished 
Slavery there. It rendered it more profitable to hire free 
laborers than maintain Slaves. And when that felicitous 
type of society which he presents for our admiration, shall 
exist in the South, he will find that Slavery will cease to 
exist. That more servile system of dependence of labor 
upon capital which exists there, will be substituted here, 
likewise, in the place of our peculiar institution. The owner 
of land will not work Slave labor upon it, if it is more to 
his interest to employ hirelings. It is not a little singular to 
me that these very results and causes in the North, which 
have confessedly driven Slavery from their limits, should be 



40 



ARGUMENT. 



held up to Southern men for their admiration. The "wave 
of foreign power," as it is called, which the North have en- 
joyed, and to which they are welcome, would not have bene 
fitted the Slave-holding South. If it had come in competi- 
tion with Slave labor here, it would not have benefitted the 
owner of the Slave ; nor would it by the same competition with 
our native laboring population, have benefitted them. It 
might have settled up our lands and enhanced their value — 
and it might have contributed to bring about that more ad- 
vanced condition of things so beautifully depicted of the 
North; but it could not have benefitted the institution of 
Slavery by settling and enhancing the price of lands, and 
bringing cheap white labor in competition with it. In the 
next place, I have this to observe in reference to the argu- 
ment of the Report above quoted. If it is good for any 
thing at all — if there is any soundness in it, and if the con- 
trast drawn between the prosperous condition of that model 
state of society in which it is said, "the people have the 
comforts of wealth, and the further satisfaction of being 
regarded as the most enterprising and judicious people in 
existence," and the declining condition of the unfortunate 
South, where "many of us in the older sections would fail 
to sell our estates to-day for as much as was paid for them 
in market fifty years ago," (because we are suffering so for 
want of negroes,) is a true contrast, and if it proves any 
thing, it proves a little too much for the cause of Slavery. It 
would go to prove, that of the "two distinct and antagonis- 
tic forms of society which have met for contest upon the 
arena of this Union," the Northern form is superior to the 
Southern. I have known these invidious comparisons to be 
made, by those who are opposed to our institutions, and the 
difference attributed by them, not to the fact that we did not 
have Slaves enough, but that we had any at all ; but I have 
not known these boastings of their superior prosperity to be 
taken up and confessed by Southern men, and worked in to 
the argument of a Southern question. If our people were 



ARGUMENT. 



41 



all to become convinced of the views here presented, and 
should fall in love with the fascinating condition of the 
North under their cheap labor and dense population sys- 
tems, it might be difficult to persuade them that relief was r 
to be found in the importation of hordes of barbarians from 
Africa. As for me, I repudiate the comparison utterly. I 
maintain that Southern society and Southern prosperity, in 
all the material respects here indicated, is not fairly present- 
ed nor justly contrasted. The income of our vested inter- 
ests, as they are called, is not such as to show that we are 
declining, nor are we suffering from the high value of la- 
bor. A country which can exhibit the three great proofs of 
prosperity, which are to be found in the South, and which 
are confessed by this argument, to-wit : Productiveness of 
vested interests, high priced labor and high wages for labor, 
and cheap lands, is in the most enviable position that any 
republican society can ever occupy. Our hardy agricultu- 
ral population who can own the cheap lands and are attach- 
ed to the soil, and whose labor is valuable in the same pro- 
portion that other labor in the country is valuable, I would 
not be willing to exchange for the masses of Northern land- 
less laborers, who, by their cheap labor, contribute to the 
wealth of the few who can possess the land. The idea con- 
veyed in this Report, that our lands would not sell for as 
much now as they brought fifty years ago, and that that 
result would have been avoided by increased numbers of ^ 
Slaves, or that it would now be obviated by an influx of 
Slaves, is a novel thought. Those very lands have been 
worn out by Slave labor, and it would have been a strange 
remedy to have doubled the number of negroes upon them. 
The truth, on the contrary, is, that Slave labor agriculture 
has required fresh lands to keep it profitable, and the char- ^ 
acter of the products has been such as not to admit of the 
same improvement in lands as other branches of agriculture. 
Neither could a cotton State support such a dense popula- 
tion as those countries have where there are 100 and 300 to 



42 



ARGUMENT. 



the square mile, and continue profitably the culture of cot- 
ton or any other article of Southern export. In such a state 
of things, the consumption of provisional products would be 
so great that it would require the land to be devoted to the 
production of the cereals, as is the case in the North and 
in Europe. So that the cotton culture and those branches 
of agriculture to which negro labor is best adapted, would 
disappear under the auspices of that halcyon prospect held 
out to us in this Report. 

But the great mistake in the argument of the Report, lies 
in applying the reasoning which is applicable to free labor 
at the North to the Slave labor of the South. Now, if it 
were admitted for the sake of argument, that dense popula- 
tion and cheap labor, were really a blessing to a nation — that 
is to the greatest number of the people of a nation where 
Slavery does not exist — it by no means follows that a dense 
Slave population and cheap Slave labor in the South would 
work out similar benefits to the people of the South. Un- 
der the free labor system of society the "vested interests" 
or the landed estate, is a separate and distinct interest from 
the laboring interest. Capital there is one thing, and labor 
is another. And as capital can reduce the wages of labor, 
it enhances its own profits. And as labor can enhance its 
own wages, it decreases the profits of capital. The contest 
is between the capitalist and the laborer, and in the lan- 
guage of this Report — "If labor goes down, the product 
being the same, the subject of its employment must go up, 
and, like a see-saw, the one end cannot fall without the 
other's rising." This is not very classical, but it may be 
very true when applied to the case at the North, for there 
the labor is on one end and the subjects of its employment, 
or the capitalist, on the other end. And when the laborer 
goes down the capitalist goes up, very truly. But Slave 
labor in the South does not ride upon one end of the see-saw 
and the landlord on the other end. The Slave himself is a 
part of the proprietor's "vested interest." He see-saws on 



ARGUMENT. 



43 



the same end of the plank with his master; and when he 
goes down, his master goes with him and the vested inte- 
rests go too. If he were a free laborer working for wages, 
he would get on the other end of the plank, and of course 
the lower his wag as could be reduced, the higher would be 
the profits of the landlord. The idea of reducing the value 
of the labor o: a man's negro, and thereby increasing the 
profits of his land, is a fallacious conception. This exhibits 
the error ir.to which the distinguished author of the Report 
fell. It is an error of the most radical nature. I am per- 
suaded that he fell into it by applying the logic which is ap- 
plicable to the vested interests of the free soil proprietor, to 
the case of the Southern Slave holder. Would it benefit the 
free soil proprietor to reduce the price of his land? If it 
would not, it could not benefit the Southern proprietor to 
reduce the value of that important part of his capital, his 
negro labor. Now, just here in this mistaken conception, 
begins an error which runs through all the reasoning of the 
author of that Report. It was this that made him assume 
that cheap labor was an advantage to the North, because it 
enhanced the interest of the owner of the soil, and then a 
false comparison of cases, which are not analogous, led him 
to assume that cheap labor in the South would be a benefit ' 
to the South. And as dense population, an increased num- 
ber of laborers in the North makes labor cheap — so the 
African Slave Trade would increase our Slave population, 
and of course make Slave labor cheap. That was the pro- 
cess of his reasoning. 

Well, that the African Slave Trade will cheapen the labor 
of Slaves in the South I shall not only admit, but shall at- 
tempt to assist in proving. But that such a result would 
be a benefit to us, I shall utterly deny. That it would be a 
benefit to the North and to Europe, nay to all the world ex- 
cept the South, I am ready to concede — but the benefit to 
them would be at our expense. It would be like low wages 



44 



ARGUMENT. 



to the free laborer, a benefit to the employer and to the con- 
sumers of the product, but death to him. 

Now, would it be supposed that this Report, after saying 
so much about population and cheap labor at the North, and 
after attributing the prosperity of the North to these causes, 
and the less fortunate condition of the South to the absence 
of these favorable elements — nay, after presenting these as 
the advantages to be reaped from the Slave Trade, would 
turn round and in the next breath deny that the Slave Trade 
would reduce the price of our negroes ? The idea of reduction 
of negro labor, however, the author very naturally supposed 
would strike the minds of Slave holders unfavorably, and a 
healing argument is offered, to prove that the importation of 
a cheaper form of Slave labor from Africa would not affect 
the price of our native Slaves. This argument has become 
quite current among the advocates of the Slave Trade poli- 
cy, and as it is intended to meet a very formidable objection, 
and I can find it in no more authoritative shape than in this 
Report, I will quote the words, and examine into the 
reasoning. 

"It may, perhaps be objected," says this document, "to 
the sufficiency of this argument, that if the Slave Trade 
shall furnish labor cheaper, it will lower the price of Slaves, 
and thus, therefore, that it will injure one class of interests 
as much as it will benefit another. But this is not the ope- 
ration. It will give a cheaper form of Slave labor. There 
can be little doubt that it will furnish Slaves that are com- 
petent to many of the under-offices of life at a figure much 
below the present range of prices, but these will not come in 
competition with the Slaves at present in the country. 
Those who own Slaves now will be the first, perhaps, to buy 
them. Though not competent to do the business of educa- 
ted Slaves, they will yet be able, under the direction of edu- 
cated Slaves, to do the business which would else require a 
better class of labor, and without there should be a reduc- 
tion in the price of Southern Staples the trained Slaves can- 



ARGUMENT. 



45 



not be less valuable than they are, and with this want of 
them to guide and regulate the African it is possible that 
they may come to even higher value." This is the argu- 
ment on that point, and it is followed by a labored attempt 
to show that cotton would not be materially reduced, &c, 
to which I shall advert in its proper place. 

Now, this argument, if a sound one, has over-matched the 
objection it was intended to meet, and it actually results in 
the conclusion, that the negroes now in the country may be 
rendered more valuable by becoming the^ regulators or over- 
seers of the imported Slaves. And that argument will 
strike at another very- respectable class of our Southern 
people's interest, the overseers; and it will be necessary for 
the authors of this B-eport to show that it will not drive 
them out of their employment, to make overseers of the ne- 
groes now in the country. They find themselves just here, 
in a very serious difficulty. I leave them to settle it the 
best way they can, with that useful and respectable class of 
our people. But let us suppose, that the supposition here 
made would be true — that the imported negroes would be 
bought principally by the owners of the native Slaves, and 
that the wild negroes would require to be guided and regu- 
lated by the educated negroes — in the first place, it would 
hardly be possible for the Slave holding planters of the 
South to buy enough of the Africans to employ their pres- 
ent force altogether as overseers. Some now work fifty 
hands, some one hundred, and some five hundred; it would 
require a pretty heavy purchase to employ all these or any 
considerable portion of them as overseers, unless it should 
turn out, as it did with the monkeys who were employed in 
picking out cotton, and placed under negro regulators — ten 
monkeys to the negro — when it was soon ascertained that it 
would take at least ten negroes, and they the best "educat- 
ed" of the race, to regulate one monkey! And, again, 
unless these wild Slaves should be very hard to train and 
educate, this state of things could not remain long, unless it 



46 



ARGUMENT. 



is intended to keep wild ones enough, freshly imported 
annually, to keep the native negroes engaged in their offices 
of training and guiding. And, it is to be supposed, 
that after a while these Africans would become trained, and 
rise to the higher "offices of life" — then would the accession 
to the number of educated Slaves from this source have no 
tendency to reduce the price of the native negroes ? 

This whole argument proceeds upon a most absurd as- 
sumption. It assumes that the introduction of an inferior 
and cheapo" foriil" of> Slave irbor, will have no tendency to 
diminish the demand for the better class of negroes." Why, 
if this cheaper class of negroes will' -mswer the purposes of 
the Southern man, he will of course buy them in prefer- 
ence. If they are useless, it is an argument against their 
importation at all, and if they are capable of being ren- 
dered available laborers in the cotton, rice and sugar plan- 
tations of the South, which the advocates for their introduc- 
tion must believe, or else they would not desire them im- 
ported — then, of course, they will supply the great demand 
for Slave labor, which, with these gentlemen, is regarded as 
so crying a complaint in the South. If they will not sup- 
ply that demand, then the remedy they have prescribed will 
not answer the purpose for which it is proposed. It is a 
most singular contradiction to say, that there is a great de- 
mand for an increase of Slave labor, and to propose the 
re-opening of this traffic for the supply of that demand, and 
then to say that it will not diminish the demand, so as to 
affect the price of the negroes already in the country. This 
logic refutes itself. It requires no reply further than to 
state their several positions together, and let them destroy 
themselves. I should say, if the imported negroes are valu- 
able at all, and can be bought so cheaply, the result would 
be that every planter's interest would impell him to buy them 
in preference to the higher priced natives, particularly when 
it is remembered that that class who would be the buyers, 
according to the admission of the Report, already possess 



ARGUMENT. 



47 



educated negroes to " guide" them. Besides, all the money 
invested in Africans would be that much withdrawn from 
the market for domestic Slaves. 

The imported Africans, too, would "multiply and replen- 
ish" the South, and the generations born on our soil, and 
under the genial influence of Southern institutions, would 
be well educated by the time they were old enough to labor. 
Would not that source of the increase of supply, affect the 
price of the negroes already in the country ? Not only is 
it clear, therefore, that the increased supply of Slaves from 
this traffic would reduce the price of negroes generally in 
the country, by changing the relative state of the supply and 
demand — but, as will appear in the sequel of this Essay, the 
price of negroes will be further affected and reduced by a 
reduction of the price of Southern staples, which are the 
products of Slave labor. For, although we speak of the 
relative state of the supply and demand influencing and 
governing the price of an article, we do not mean that these 
constitute the sole elements of price. We allude to the 
effects of that law upon an article added to its intrinsic 
value, or its cost of production, or its own productiveness, 
as the case may be. And as a matter of course, any cause 
which goes beyond the fluctuations of supply and demand, 
and affects the intrinsic value of an article, or the cost of 
the production of that article, or the productive value of 
that article, will strike more directly at its price than any 
other cause. This I shall make appear more clearly in the 
argument which I propose in the next place to enter upon, 
in reference to the cotton interest of the South, as it is con- 
nected with the African Slave Trade. When we have as- 
certained what effect that traffic will have upon cotton and 
the other great staples which are dependent upon Slave 
labor, we shall then be the better prepared to judge of the 
effect of these causes upon the price of negroes. And the 
definition and constituent elements of price as applicable to 
that species of property, will then be more fully explained, 



48 



ARGUMENT. 



and the consequences of this policy in their bearings upon 
the destiny of this institution, traced. 

We have now in the Southern States about three and a 
half millions of Slaves. If the Trade from Africa was re- 
opened, how long would it be before that number would be 
doubled? In Western Africa, which contains a population 
of 40 or 50 millions, Slaves are sold at £2 or £3 a head. 
The supply which that entire country would furnish is in- 
calculable and inexhaustible. The vast profit of the Trade, 
considering the difference in their value here, and the cost 
of their purchase or of kidnapping in Africa, and their trans- 
portation hither, would make it the most lucrative Trade in 
the world, and would consequently enlist in it vast means of 
importation. The kidnapping propensities of New England 
would return to her, with an accumulated shipping capacity 
of a half century, and with an appetite increased in pro- 
portion to the advanced value of the negro. She would 
undoubtedly reap her full share of the Trade. She is skill- 
ed in the arts of the business, having practiced it long upon 
the negro property of her sister States. Her conscience is 
prepared for its horrors, having long been seared by fanati- 
cism as with a hot iron. And as long as there was a dollar to 
be made in the traffic, she would cling to it as her mercena- 
ry soul clings to filthy lucre. How long would it be before 
the number of Slaves in the South would be seven millions, 
instead of three and a half? Even the feeble state of Bra- 
zil imported, prior to 1850, about 70,000 Slaves a year from 
Africa, and did it under the discouragements and harrass- 
ments of a British squadron on the African coast, which 
oppressed and coerced her traders, as Great Britain will ever 
do a weaker power. How much greater would be the com- 
mercial ability of this country to import, than that of Bra- 
zil ? And great as the demand now is in this country for 
Slaves, the low prices at which they could be imported and 
sold, would manifestly tend, at first, to expand the demand, 
by bringing negro property within the reach of a larger 



ARGUMENT. 



49 



class of purchasers. So that it must be admitted that it 
would not be many years before the Slave population would 
be doubled.* 

At that point of increase, let us examine the result. Of 
course the productions of Slave labor would be doubled. 
How would that affect the price of those staples ? Suppose 
I should put the question to every speculator and every com- 
mission merchant, and every farmer engaged in the business 
of cotton — what effect would it have upon the price of the ar- 
ticle to double the quantity of the crop ; is there one who 
would not say that it would reduce the price ? We are ac- 
customed to calculate with much concern the probable amount 
of the growing crop, with a view of estimating the chances 
of a good price. And yet, some men will stand up and face 
the plain business men of the South, and deny that this in- 
crease of the cotton crop would affect injuriously the price 
of cotton. If they do not deny it directly, they do indi- 
rectly. They deny that the increase of Slave labor, by the 
policy under consideration, would result in this reduction of 
price in proportion to the increase of the crop produced. 
This Report to the Southern Convention, which, with due 
respect to the patriotism and ability of its distinguished au- 
thors, I must say, seems to me, to set at defiance all estab- 
lished principles, asserts that "it is not supposable that the 
foreign Slave Trade will much reduce it." They would 
doubtless admit, if the valley of the Amazon was suddenly 
about to be converted into a cotton growing province, and 
supplied with a half a million negro laborers from Africa — 
so that a million bales would be added to* the cotton produc- 
tion of the world — that the price of our cotton would be 
affected injuriously by it. But the same result worked out 
by the other process, they absurdly reject. We were jeal- 
ous enough of the experiment made by Great Britain, to 

♦Note. — Professor Tucker estimates that the Slave population in the United States, from 
natural increase, according to the ratio of its past multiplication, will be in 1920 about 31 
millions. If this be true, there will be at that time negroes enough for our posterity, and 
more I fear than they can safely manage. And but three score years lie between that pe- 
riod and the present. 

4 



50 



ARGUMENT. 



produce cotton in the Indies ; and of the experiment now 
being made to promote the growth of cotton in the western 
portion of Africa; and of the culture of cotton in China. 
We readily admit, that the quantity grown out of our limits, 
which is about one-third of the amount consumed in the 
world, and of such an inferior quality that it must be mixed 
with American cotton to make it available, has the inevita- 
ble effect of keeping down the market value of our own pro- 
duct, to a degree corresponding to the quantity and quality 
of the foreign article. And yet, this plain law of political 
economy, some are ready, in the zeal of their enthusiasm, to 
deny, when made applicable to the question in hand. Re- 
duce the quantity of the crop one-half, and it is easy to per- 
ceive that the price would rise. Double that crop, and the 
price will fall, by reason of the converse operation of the 
same principle. 

It may be replied, that, if this reasoning is correct, it 
proves that the fewer negroes we possess, the more we would 
make by their labor ; and, therefore, it would be expedient to 
lessen the number in order to enhance their value, upon 
this principle. It is undoubtedly true, that the reduction of 
the number would enhance the value of those that remain- 
ed; but the conclusion does not follow that there would be 
expediency, good policy, or practicability in destroying one- 
half of our property to enhance the value of the rest. 
The value of that which remained when thus enhanced 
could only be, at most, equal to the whole, and then nothing 
would be gained by the process of diminishing the number. 
And, on the other hand, it is to be remembered that the re- 
duction of the value of negroes, by an over-supply of negro 
labor, and by reducing the value of the staples produced by 
that labor, in proportion as it approximates that point of 
cheapness at which free labor can be most economically em- 
ployed, endangers the existence and perpetuity of the rela- 
tion of Slavery, as an institution. Nor would the principle 
above-mentioned, make it proper, or politic (even if possi- 



ARGUMENT. 



51 



ble) to cut off that natural increase of the production of our 
staples and increase and growth of negro property, which is 
the gradual and natural development of the existing order 
and condition of things. But a very different thing it sure- 
ly is, when we discuss the expediency of disturbing that 
natural order and condition of things, of society, property, 
production and prices, by such policy as re-opening our 
ports to the unusual and unnatural supplies of Slaves, in 
which, before they are introduced, no interest is invested and 
no property existing. 

It may be further replied, that the reduction of the price 
of cotton by the increase of Slave labor, and the consequent 
increase of crops, would be compensated by the reduction of 
the cost of its production, which would arise from the fact 
that it was produced by negroes in whom less money was 
invested, and consequently could be sold cheaper, with the 
same per cent, of profits upon the capital employed in its 
production. This would doubtless be true, to some extent. 
But the question is, what would be gained by a policy which 
cheapened our staple productions, and then repaired the loss 
by cheapening the capital invested in their production? 
This only goes to show that all would be on the decline to- 
gether — the productiveness of capital, and the capital itself. 
It would surely be but poor consolation to the owners of 
our present Slave population, when the price of their staples 
is thus reduced by over-production and surplus supplies, 
to tell them that their negroes were reduced also, by the 
same means ; and that if they did not make as much as they 
did before, with a given number of hands, they must re- 
member that they did not have as much money invested in 
them as formerly. This would be adding insult to injury, 
as to that class. And as for those who had invested in the 
imported negroes at cheap prices, what gain could it be to 
them, that they had bought cheap negroes, when they can 
only make correspondingly cheap cotton with them ? Had 
they not as well have opposed the Slave Trade, and bought 



52 



ARGUMENT. 



fewer negroes at higher prices, and produced less cotton 
with them, at better prices ? This view will derive additional 
strength from the consideration that the price of the negro 
when once introduced, whatever may have been his original 
cost, will tend to conform itself to the value of his produc- 
tive labor. This we shall see in the course of this argument 
constitutes the leading element in the permanent value and 
price of negroes. The price will fluctuate according to the 
relative state of supply and demand ; but in negro property 
it continually gravitates towards the point I have indicated. 
This point will be more clearly demonstrated when it arises 
in its proper order. 

I am met here, in relation to the subject of cotton, with 
an argument of . this kind : that as the supply of cotton is 
increased, the demand will be enlarged and the consumption 
increased. The idea is entertained, that there is some vast 
expansive power in the commercial world, relative to cotton, 
which will counteract the effect of an over-supply and keep 
the demand forever insatiable. This idea, though prevalent, 
is vague in its conceptions and exceedingly delusive in its 
nature. Now how will an increased production of cotton 
expand the consumption ? That it will do it, I do not deny. 
But the question is how will it do it? In the first place, it 
will induce more capital in Europe to be invested in manu- 
facturing. Now, why will the increased supply of cotton 
induce investments in factories. I do not deny such an 
effect ; but what is the principle on which it proceeds ? Why 
do not these additional investments now take place? Is it 
because they cannot get the material at all ? Surely, they 
could become competitors in the purchase of the present 
supply of raw material. The new establishments could buy 
cotton, as well as the capitalists already engaged in it. 
Why, then, do they not invest ? It is because of the high 
price of the raw-material. The limited supply would not 
deter them from taking their chances in the market, if it 
were not for the fact, that the limited supply is accompanied 



ARGUMENT. 



53 



with correspondingly high prices. Now, to remove the diffi- 
culty, and induce them to invest and become purchasers of 
the raw-material, you must not simply furnish them with a 
more abundant supply, at original high prices ; you must add 
to the quantity the other essential inducements of lower 
prices. The increased supply without a reduction of price 
would not answer the purpose. It is then, in that way, and 
on that principle alone, that the enlargement of our cotton 
crops will cause more factories in Europe to be put into oper- 
ation. It will effect it by depressing the price of cotton. 
The capitalist is thus induced to embark in the business, be- 
cause when he buys the raw cotton at cheaper rates, he can 
sell his fabrics cheaper, and in that way open a wider field 
of consumption. When the cotton fabrics are reduced in 
price, more can be sold, for they are brought within the 
reach of a larger class of consumers. In this way, and on 
this principle, the consumptive capacity of the world will be 
expanded. At reduced prices a larger class become con- 
sumers, and consume more bountifully than under high 
prices. The manufacturer's market for cotton goods being 
widened, he can sell at cheaper rates of profit to himself, 
because he can sell more goods. But he cannot go below 
the standard of the cost of the material and of its manufac- 
ture. Within that limit he may reduce the profits of his 
business. The controlling principle with him, in the sale of 
the manufactured articles, is the cost of its manufacture 
added to the cost of the raw-material. And when you put 
the manufactured article down, to accommodate it to a 
larger class of consumers, and in that way, enlarge the con- 
sumption, you must keep the cost of the raw-material at a 
corresponding rate. And when you have got an increase of 
manufacturing capital in Europe, so that competition among 
them in selling their fabrics, will make them sell as low as 
they can, and thereby reduce the price of cotton goods, 
you force upon the manufacturer the necessity of buying 
the raw-material low. As long as he can sell at good prices, 



54 



ARGUMENT. 



he can afford to pay well for cotton. The cost of the cot- 
ton is the great lever power that controls him. If he pays 
high for that, he must charge high prices for his goods. 
And, when the competition of his own branch of business is 
reducing him to low profits, he will endeavor to throw the 
loss upon the cotton producer. Now, here is the mistake 
which some people make, when they talk about the increase 
of manufacturing establishments, raising the price of cot- 
ton, by competing with each other in the market for that 
article ; and it is thus that they over-estimate the advantage 
from that source. They do not consider the strong compe- 
tition on the other hand, in the sale of their fabrics. The 
latter reduces the profits of their business and the price 
of the manufactured articles, and thereby counteracts the 
effect, to a great extent, of their competition as purchasers 
of the raw cotton. They come out of the strife with each 
other in the sale of their improved values, less able or will- 
ing to compete vigorously for the raw material. 

Now, the idea of the manufacturer being able to sell 
cheaper, when he can sell more of his fabrics, and in that 
way repairing loss upon one bolt of cloth by the increased 
aggregate of heavy sales, is a principle which, it will be well 
to remember, is not applicable to the cotton planter's busi- 
ness. We are not rendered the more able to sell cotton low, 
because we have a double quantity to sell. Cotton is not 
made by steam. It comes from the earth by the toil of the 
: hand and the sweat of the brow. A printer of - calicoes, or 
a printer of newspapers, may lower their prices if you will 
double the custom of the one, or the subscription list of the 
other. It is not so with the man who grows the products 
of the soil. He can afford to produce a thousand bales of 
cotton at no cheaper rates, than he could one hundred. 

If, then, the increase of our Slaves through the African 
traffic would double the quantity of cotton we produce, and 
that increased supply would induce an extension of the 
manufacturing business, as I admit that it would ; and these 



ARGUMENT. 



55 



two causes combined expands the consumption of cotton 
goods in the world, as I admit would be true, and reduces 
the price of those goods — the great question is, who is to 
bear the loss of that reduction of price ? I might answer 
this question by asking a more general and a more abstract 
one. In all contests between the moneyed capitalist and the 
tiller of the soil, who triumphs, and who is compelled to bear 
losses ? In other words, the loss of the whole operation of 
which I have been speaking, of the reduction of the price of 
the manufactured articles, consequent on the increase of 
manufacturing capital, and the increase of the cotton crop, 
by the influx of African laborers, will be hurled back upon 
the cotton planter of the South by the depression of the 
exchangeable value of his great staple. We talk much 
about cotton being King. But that King has never been 
able to govern the prices for which his subjects sell the pro- 
ducts of their toil. Somebody else was King last Fall and 
Winter when a cotton crop, unusually small, and which en- 
tered the market at fifteen cents was suddenly put down to 
eight and nine cents. Who was the King then ? And where 
did the loss of that revulsion fall? It did not fall upon 
Wall Street nor London money-changers. It did not fall, as 
was supposed by some, upon the manufacturing capitalists. 
It fell upon the poor laborer in the factories, and the cotton 
planter of the South. The one went out of employment 
and lived upon air — and the other took half price for hie 
cotton ; and the English and Northern capitalists, whose es- 
tablishment was suspended in its operations for a season, 
while a better speculation was going on — and soon resumed 
with an ample supply of what the "London Cotton Plant"* 
so extensively circulated in the South, (have you seen it ?) 
so glibly calls " Cheap Cotton;" and now they are spinning 
and printing fabrics, made out of cheap material, to be sold 

*Notb. This British paper has undertaken the cause of the South ; it advocates the ^ 
re-opemng of the Slave Trade by the United States ; the withdrawal of the British squad- 
ron from the coast of Africa ; and its argument is " Cheap Cotton " for British man, 
ufacturers. 



56 



ARGUMENT. 



at profits and prices corresponding to the recovered condi- 
tion of the currency and the commercial world. They can 
soon repair all the losses of a few months suspension in 
their operations. But when will the cotton planter recover 
his losses on the crop of last year ? 

To show that the increase of our cotton by African labor- 
ers would not diminish the price materially, the Report 
alluded to above says that there is an increasing demand in 
the world for cotton of six per cent, per annum. How the 
exact per cent, was arrived at I do not know ; but that there 
may be a certain natural increase of demand going on in 
the world, by the advancement of civilization and the 
growth and improvement of mankind, in the arts of indus- 
try and in commerce, is not denied. But there is likewise a 
natural growth of the cotton interest in the United States 
and abroad ; and with us, a natural increase of Slave labor, 
and a constant transfer of Slaves from other States to the 
cotton lands of the South-west. And this latter march of 
improvement is fully equal to the other, as is evident from 
the fact that there is no advance of six per cent, or other 
per cent, in the average price of cotton. The truth is, as 
we all know, that Slavery is gradually concentrating in the 
cotton country. It is receding from Delaware and Mary- 
land, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, and in some degree 
from some other States, and concentrating itself in the cot- 
ton region. There are two causes powerfully operating to 
remove it from those States. One is, the superior value of 
Slave labor in the cotton lands ; the other, the rapid increase 
of white population and the inevitable consequence of cheap- 
ness of labor. One of the most distinguished sons of Vir- 
ginia has shown, by irresistable reasoning, that this latter 
cause will ultimately remove the institution from the Old Do- 
minion and from other States. These causes are natural, 
and according to the irresistable course of events. We can- 
not stay these results ; but let us, at least, not precipitate 
them. And if Slavery is ultimately to find its destination, 



ARGUMENT. 



57 



in the cotton region of the South and South-west, where its 
province will be limited, let us not so increase its numbers 
as to compel that region to exclude them in self-defence, or 
to render them less valuable in their sphere. 

With this reduction of the price of cotton, from the in- 
crease of its production, it is manifest that the price of cot- 
ton lands would depreciate in a corresponding degree, in- 
stead of being enhanced, as was said, by the increase of the 
Slave population. An acre of land is valued according to 
the amount of money its productiveness will bring to the 
proprietor. If that acre will produce one bale of cotton, 
and the price of that bale is reduced to five cents per lb, the 
land is worth just half as much as when the same cotton 
was worth ten cents. It is very true, that the fluctuations 
of price, which arise from occasional causes and are only 
temporary in their nature, will not affect the value of real 
estate so as to make it rise and fall with every change. 
But this is a fair mode and the true rule of reasoning. 
And when any cause of a permanent nature reduces the 
price of the product of the soil, it has a tendency, to that 
extent, to reduce the value of the soil itself. 

Having now ascertained the effect of this policy upon the 
price of our great staple, we are the better prepared to re- 
sume the point which was suspended for this purpose in re- 
spect to the value of Slave property, as influenced by the 
African Slaye Trade. That point we have had under re- 
view, so far as to consider the direct effect which an increase 
of the number of negroes in market would have upon the 
price, and so far as to combat the paradoxical proposition 
put forth in the Report of the Slave Trade Committee, as to 
the effect of the importation upon the negro property 
already in the country. In reviewing the reasoning of that 
Report also, upon the subject of population and cheap 
labor, this subject incidentally came to light in several 
points of view, and some observations were made which 
would be equally just and appropriate in this connexion. 



58 



ARGUMENT. 



Now, the reduction of the value of negro labor, by reducing 
the price of cotton and the value of the negro's productive 
labor, is a more direct stroke at the interests of this insti- 
tution than the mere over-stocking of the market, and it is 
a stroke from which it would be more difficult to recover. 

The price of an article is its exchangeable value. The 
price of those commodities which perish in the use, consists 
of the cost of production plus the effect of supply and de- 
mand. The value of real estate is estimated by its produc- 
tiveness either in rents or the proceeds of its fruits. And 
negro property partakes of the nature of realty to some 
extent, and its price is estimated by its productive value 
plus the effect of the supply and demand of negro labor; 
and the demand, as has been intimated, is stimulated or de- 
creased by the value of its productiveness. To reduce the 
price of cotton, then, or other products of Slave labor, is to 
reduce the value of the negro. It is absurd to talk about 
cheap cotton without involving the idea of cheap negro 
labor ; and equally absurd to think of cheap negroes with- 
out the idea of cheapness in the products of their labor. 
The mistake made by some in the Southern Convention, who 
advocated the Slave Trade upon the ground that it would 
furnish cheaper negroes, was, that they denied that his pro- 
ductive value would be cheapened when he was made cheap. 
The one is inseparable from the other. To talk about buy- 
ing negroes at $300 when the product of his labor is the 
same that it now is, would be to deal in fallacies and sophis- 
tries too transparent for the most illiterate tiller of South- 
ern soil. The elements that enter into the value of a ne- 
gro, the figures by which he is bought and sold, are too 
well understood and known from experience. Even an in- 
creased supply would be constantly counteracted in its de- 
pressing effects by this stronger cause, if that cause remain- 
ed the same, and was not itself removed by reduction of 
the price of products. And thus the vast profits arising 
from the difference in the cost of the Africans imported and 



ARGUMENT. 



59 



the purchase money here, would be reaped by the kidnap- 
per, and not by the Southern planter who purchased him. 
He would be sold here by the rule of his productive value, 
and to say that he would be some cheaper, because he pre- 
sented "a cheaper form of Slave labor" or, in other words, 
because he could do but poor work, is to misconceive the im- 
port of the term ; for a negro who sells for less than other 
negroes, only in proportion to his worthlessness, is no cheap- 
er, though you should buy him at $300. If that is the idea, 
there are cheap forms of Slave labor already in our midst. 

It cannot require more argument to establish this point. 
It is clear that those who are hoping for cheap Slave labor, 
on the one hand, and high prices for their products, on the 
other, are hugging to their bosoms a delusive phantom of 
Southern prosperity. 

Take it, then, that this is true, and let us see what would 
be the consequence, reasoning upon the hypothesis of $300 
as the price of a negro, which was the amount mentioned 
by a gentleman in the Southern Convention, as a result de- 
sirable and attainable by the African Slave Trade. The 
three and a half millions of negroes we now possess are 
worth, at their present valuation, more than three times 
what they would be worth after the reduction of field hands 
to $300. So that, when six millions are added by that pol- 
icy to our present number, the negro property of the 
Southern States will be worth no more than it is at present 
upon his valuation. Would the South gain by the ex- 
change in numbers? 

Again, if a negro now is worth in Alabama or Missis- 
sippi four hundred dollars a year, he would then be worth 
one hundred. If in Georgia or South Carolina, he is now 
worth two hundred dollars a year, his productive value 
would then be fifty dollars. He would then hire 'probably 
for food and raiment. This would enable all our poor peo- 
ple, who are not able to buy negroes at the present high 
prices, to procure them, say some; and in that way all 



60 



ARGUMENT. 



would become deeply interested in Slavery. It would enable 
the owners of the waste lands in the older Southern States 
to reclaim and enrich sedge fields and piney groves, say 
others. But would a poor man buy a negro, if that negro's 
labor was only worth fifty dollars a year? He could not 
afford to feed him. And indebtedness, which now would 
only absorb one-fourth of a man's negroes, would then take 
all that he had, and thus many small Slave-holders and not 
a few larger ones, would find themselves emancipated by the 
Sheriff from all further concern personally in the question 
of Slavery. A breeding negro woman with three or four 
children would be a burthen that no one would be willing 
to support, unless attached by stronger ties than interest to 
the institution. This would strike at the very root of our 
Slave property. The cost of raising and maintaining an 
infant negro, would consume twice his value. This would 
tear up the institution by the roots in Georgia, to say noth- 
ing of Virginia and other States which raise them for the 
West. It would bo worse than abolition in its worst forms. 
It would force emancipation upon us by the pinching "en- 
croachments" of irresitable necessity. There would be no 
escape from the bankruptcy of holding and raising Slaves 
but universal abolition. Neither could the proprietors of 
those waste lands, which we desire to see reclaimed and 
blossoming with the cotton plant, afford to feed and clothe 
negroes and employ them in reclaiming worn lands if, when 
those lands were reclaimed — which would require an expen- 
sive process of several years — they could expect only to 
reap as the fruits of the labor of their Slaves such profits 
and income as would correspond with the above value. The 
result would rather be, that both the waste land and the 
wasted property of negroes would be abandoned by proprie- 
tors as a measure of self-defence. How would this state of 
value affect us, even here in middle Georgia, (to say nothing 
of Virginia) where women and children are now considered 
the best Slave property ? It is needless to pursue this view 



ARGUMENT. 



61 



of the subject into further details. Every one can reason 
upon these consequences for himself. Instead of this con- 
dition of things strengthening the institution, it would pull 
it down with iron hooks. Instead of inducing an expansion 
of the basis of Slave property, it would have just the oppo- 
site result. Men would not buy nor hold Slaves, if they 
were so reduced in value as to be rather a burden than a 
benefit. It is well known, that there are many Slave-holders 
in the older parts of the Southern country who now make 
very little above the support of their Slaves — their princi- 
pal accumulation consisting in the increase and growth of 
their negroes. 

But where would this process of the increase of Slaves, 
and over-supply of productions, and decrease of prices and 
profits, end ? I have argued it at the point where the Slave 
population was supposed to be doubled, and then I have 
taken it at the low figure of three hundred dollars for ne- 
groes. But have we any assurance that it would stop at 
that? As long as money could be made by importing a 
wild negro, that importation would continue. If the much 
despised Acts of Congress, as they are by some, had not 
wisely prohibited this traffic from and after the year 1808, 
and the flood gates of African importation had continued to 
be uplifted, long ere this the South would have been clam- 
oring for the exercise of Congressional power to protect her 
against so great an evil. Long ere this, some of these ar- 
guments I am making against it would have been more than 
speculation and theory. And the effort (now) would be just 
the reverse of that which the advocates of this policy are 
making; instead of getting more negroes, plans would be 
devising to colonize them back in Africa, or in some other 
way to get rid of them as a nuisance. 

The only mode of making the institution of Slavery per- 
manent, is to keep it valuable and profitable. When, from 
any cause or combination of causes, it is rendered valueless, 
Slaves will be emancipated. They never were emancipated 



62 ARGUMENT. 

in any of the Northern States while it was to their interest 
to keep them enslaved. When that guarantee failed, the 
institution fell into decay. When negroes were useful, it 
was right, religiously, morally and politically. But when 
negro property became a burden instead of a benefit, and a 
nuisance instead of a blessing, the religion, morality and 
politics of men changed accordingly. It was not Abolition 
Societies, nor abolition speeches, nor sermons that converted 
the Northern States into free States. It was the workings 
of the higher law of self-interest. The law of utility is 
the supreme law of mankind — it is above all other law in its 
practical influence. And I am much inclined to suspect 
that the same principles would work out the same results 
everywhere. The minds of the Southern people are now 
firmly grounded upon the question in a moral, religious and 
political view; but it is a fact, which the history of the 
question even in the South fully verifies, that our convic- 
tions have kept pace with the advancing usefulness of Slave 
labor. And if you could reduce the value of our negroes to 
"three hundred dollars " instead of twelve hundred, and by 
the same process bring about that inevitable accompanying 
consequence of reducing the productive value of Slave la- 
bor, you would strike a blow at the security and permanency 
of the institution ; you would pave the way for abolition- 
ism in the Southern mind. It is a well known fact, that 
many years ago, even in Georgia, when negroes were worth 
scarcely one-fourth what they are now, there was a loose 
state of public opinion on this subject. Georgia used to re- 
ceive the Resolutions of the Legislatures of free States, 
recommending emancipation, with much less indignation than 
she would now. It would surprise many who have not looked 
into the history of this question, to see how loose and un- 
stable were the foundations of this cherished institution in 
times past. In the opinion of the Supreme Court of Geor- 
gia, pronounced by Judge Lumpkin, in the case of Cleland 
vs. Waters, Vol. XVI, page 514, the following allusion to 



ARGUMENT. 



63 



this subject was made by that distinguished jurist, while re- 
viewing the history of our policy and legislation upon the 
subject of emancipation and the importation of Slaves, &c: 

"In 1824, a resolution from the State of Ohio on the 
subject of the abolition of Slavery having been laid by the 
Governor before the Legislature, the Report which was 
adopted thereon, after expressing regret, f at this unnecessary 
interference on the part of a sister State,' concludes with 
this sentence : 6 Georgia claims the right, with her Southern 
sisters whose situation in this regard is similar, of moving this 
question when an enlarged system of benevolent and philan- 
thropic exertions, in consistency with her rights and interest, 
shall render it practicable.' Is it not apparent that, up to 
this period, the true character of this institution of Slavery 
had not been fully understood and appreciated at the South, 
and that she looked to emancipation, in some undefined 
mode, in the uncertain future, as the only cure for the sup- 
posed evil? Thanks to the blind zealots of the North for 
their unwarrantable interference with this institution. It 
has roused the public mind to a thorough investigation of 
the subject. The result is, a settled conviction that it was 
wisely ordained by a forecast high as heaven above man's, 
for the good of both races, and a calm and fixed determina- 
tion to preserve and defend it, at any and all hazards." 

It is generally supposed that this change of opinion on 
the subject has arisen from the progress of intellectual en- 
lightenment, and from a more "thorough investigation of 
the subject," caused to some extent by the interference of 
the abolitionists, as Judge Lumpkin justly observes. Now, 
that there has been in our country much intellectual pro- 
gress, is not to be denied. But, on most questions of gene- 
ral statesmanship, we have not far outstripped the early pa- 
triots, even if we have attained to the wisdom which distin- 
guished them. We still yield a reverential acquiesence in 
their judgment on most subjects. On the subject of Slavery, 
we have grown wiser from experience and time. And there 



64 



ARGUMENT. 



is one great experiment in the philosophy of Slavery which 
time and experience alone could have made, which has 
thrown more light upon the question in all its bearings than 
was possessed by all the wisdom of our ancestors. And 
this experiment has done much to bring us to a "full under- 
standing and appreciation of the true character of this in- 
stitution." What is that experiment? It is a practical one. 
It is the one which has been made by the development of 
those great agricultural departments of industry and labor, 
in which Slavery has been chiefly employed, and which has 
resulted in the exhibition of the wonderful fruitfulness and 
productive value of negro labor. The utility and value of 
the institution, thus evinced and established, has aroused us 
to a better understanding of the nature of the institution, 
and proven to the world and to ourselves that it is a good 
institution. This development of its usefulness, which ren- 
ders it more a blessing "to both races," is by far the strong- 
est argument that ever was made in its behalf. It has been, 
both substantially and literally, the leading argument in de- 
fence of Slavery; for the theory and metaphysics all fol- 
lowed in its wake. Neither is this the acknowledgment of a 
fact which Slave-holders or the friends of Slavery need be 
ashamed of. No stronger argument can be had of the di- 
vine origin, and of the moral foundation of Slavery, than 
the fact of its great utility to mankind — to the maker and 
consumer of its products, and also to the Slave himself. 
The fact, that these sable descendants of African barba- 
rians are made the industrious producers of those arti- 
cles which add so much to the comfort of the world and 
so much to the progress of commerce, which itself has 
been the forerunner of civilization, and the vehicle of 
Christianity, is, to my mind, no small evidence of the wis- 
dom and "forecast" of that mysterious Providence which 
transferred them hither. Nor is the argument of utility 
the less strong, when we take into consideration the vastly 
improved condition of the Southern Slave morally and so- 



ARGUMENT. 



65 



cially, as compared to the miserable victims of the opposite 
course of things at the North, which resulted in demonstrat- 
ing their inutility, and caused them to be emancipated and 
cast out to perish. I think, therefore, that I do no injustice 
to the conscience of the South, and no violence to the de- 
fence of Slavery, when I say, that the vast increase of the 
usefulness and value of Slaves has had something to do 
with the change of opinion which has taken place in the 
South within the last forty years. 

If at the North, Slavery had continued to grow more and 
more useful and valuable, instead of becoming worthless, by 
reason of the density of their population, and the cheap- 
ness of other forms of labor, accompanied with the fact that 
there was there no great departments of agricultural indus- 
try to which Slave labor was exclusively and peculiarly 
adapted ; the opinions of Northern men would, to-day, be as 
firmly fixed in favor of this institution as they are now fa- 
natically opposed to it. Take away its usefulness, and you 
destroy and undermine the moral foundation on which it 
stands; for an unprofitable institution can never be de- 
fended on any ground. It looses, then, all its good quali- 
ties, and no logic can sustain it. To all that can be said in 
its defence, on grounds of political, moral or religious econ- 
omy, the reply would be, it is a worthless thing. That re- 
ply destroys all defences and the motives of defence. It 
strikes at the root of the institution itself. Thus you would 
weaken, it in public opinion — you make straight in our very 
midst the path of the abolitionist — you overthrow an insti- 
tution you desired to fortify. 

If you would defend Slavery — if you would strengthen it 
in the minds and hearts of Southern men — if you would 
have the South to be united in its maintenance against all 
its foes — keep the institution forever founded on a solid ba- 
sis of usefulness. The demand for Slave labor, which is so 
serious a complaint in the estimation of many, grows out of 
its usefulness and value. While it is profitable, that de*- 
5 



66 



ARGUMENT. 



mand will exist. Satiate that demand — overstock it with 
such an unnatural supply as Africa would pour in upon us, 
if the foul channels of the " middle passage" were opened, 
and you will find, when you have cured the complaint, you 
will have killed the patient. 

There is another ground upon which this policy is advo- 
cated, more purely of a political nature. It is said that it 
will increase our political power, under the three-fifths rule 
of representation. It is worthy of remark, that if this 
were an object worthy of consideration, in connexion with 
this question, it must appear to be one consistent with the 
true interests of Slavery, regarded as property. We would 
not destroy the institution, as a valuable domestic relation, 
for the vain purpose of gaining political strength. For 
then the very motive and end of the equilibrium of power 
sought to be attained will have been defeated by that suici- 
dal course. 

But is there any hope of gaining strength enough from 
such a source, to cope with the migration to the free States, 
and the ratio of their natural increase, when we consider 
that they have about double the population that we have, in- 
cluding our Slaves, without transferring to the South, Africa 
itself? The number of negroes it would take to put us on 
an equality with the representative power of the free States 
in Congress, and in the electoral colleges, upon the three- 
fifths rule, and to keep up that equality against the grow- 
ing accession of free States, and the increase of their popu- 
lation, would be incalculable. Of all the plans to create or 
maintain an equilibrium, this seems to me the least feasible. 
Indeed, I have no hope of seeing an equilibrium restored by 
this or any other means. In the Senate, where we have 
maintained our strength as a section until recently, we can 
only gain by the admission of Slave States; and that 
seems to be a forlorn hope. It is extremely doubtful whether 
we can succeed in planting Slavery in any new territory 
yet to become a State. And, whether it is to go there or 



ARGUMENT. 



67 



not, cannot be made to depend upon the question of re- 
opening the African Slave Trade. Other causes, besides the 
number of our Slaves, will control that result. It was not 
the scarcity of our negroes which deprived us of California 
and Kansas. There are causes in operation against us 
which, I fear, no increase of negroes could counteract. If 
we had had enough white men in Kansas from the South, 
we might have gained that territory. But no number of 
negroes could have saved it to us. So it will be in the set- 
tlement and admission of the other territories. If we are 
wanting in voting population, all the negroes we could im- 
port could not aid us in gaining another State to the South. 
Negroes do not strengthen our representation in territorial 
legislatures, nor in Conventions to frame State Constitu- 
tions; nor do they help us in popular votes of rejection or 
ratification. The contest between the North and the South, 
on the Slavery question, is practically transferred to the 
theatre of the new territory itself. The excitement growing 
out of it, and connected with it, finds vent and exhibition in 
Congress and in the open field of the general elections ; but 
the real contest is in the territories. It was upon that 
theatre that we have been recently defeated — and upon the 
principle of popular sovereignty, engrafted of late years 
upon our territorial policy, the real contest will always be in 
the territory. If there were ten millions of negroes, instead 
of three and a half or four, they would be no more apt than 
at present to be taken into a territory in which a contest 
was raging like that which has been kept up in Kansas ; and 
if they were taken there, and the Northern population over- 
powered the Southern in the territory, in the formation of 
its domestic institutions, it would be a disastrous result to 
those who had taken them. The migration of the Northern 
population into the new territories cannot be prevented nor 
checked. It is not done by the agency of the government ' : 
— consequently we cannot make war on the government to 
"resist" it. Emigration Aid Societies, and all the means 



68 



ARGUMENT. 



employed of late years, to promote and stimulate the migra- 
tion of Northern inhabitants into the new territories, are 
forever outside of the pale of governmental control. They 
cannot be reached by any move on the floors of Congress, 
or any move by the States of the South. They are indepen- 
i dent of the favor or encouragement of the government, and 
equally so of its opposition to their plans. They beat us upon 
our own ground — they take us upon non-intervention and pop- 
ular sovereignty itself, and beat us by the overpowering influ- 
ence of migration. Its sources are inexhaustible, and the caus- 
es which stimulate it beyond the reach of human prevention. 
The density of their population — the consequent high value 
of their lands — the cheapness and richness of the wild lands 
of the West — their peculiar adaptation to the production of 
cereals, and the fatness of their pasturage for cattle and 
stock — indeed, their bountifulness of all the rich elements of 
supply and maintenance for a hungry population — all these 
impell onward the tide of free soil empire. The increase of 
negroes is a poor expedient to stay that tide. It is a rem- 
edy which would never reach the far-off sources of their 
growing power. 

There is a very apposite view of this point to be consid- 
ered. It is a view which presents to the mind a danger that, 
instead of adding to our political strength, this policy would 
weaken it. Weaken it at home, in the strength to defend 
this institution and our firesides, when the war of abolition 
aggression shall be brought within our borders, if it ever 
should be. It is a well known fact that, in Georgia, those 
counties which embrace the best lands for Slave labor, and 
where Slaves have accumulated in the greatest numbers, 
have diminished in white population in proportion as they 
have become populated with Slaves. This has occurred by 
a process which is easily understood. A Slave-holder is 
compelled, as he grows richer, to extend his possessions. He 
must therefore, buy out the small farmers around him, and 
they must, emigrate. In this way, the wealthier portions of 



ARGUMENT. 



Georgia have greatly diminished in voting population, and 
in that element of strength, upon which alone we could rely 
for the capability of coping with the North in migration to 
the territories — or for defence at home. There may be some 
/ portions of this State in the South and South-west, where 
emigration is tending on account of the cheapness of lands 
and the undeveloped state of the country — so that as yet 
this result has not manifested itself so clearly. But look 
at the black belt, as it has been called, of middle Georgia. 
In the counties of Greene, Hancock, Jasper, Jones, Mor- 
gan, Monroe, Putnam, Baldwin and some others, it will be 
seen by the census that the negro population is much greater 
than that of the whites. In some of these it is more than 
double. In the richer portions of Alabama the same result 
is found to exist. In the counties of Macon, Montgomery, 
Lowndes, Dallas, Greene, Marengo, Madison, Perry, Sum- 
ter, Wilcox and others, the negro population is vastly in the 
ascendant as to numbers. In five or six of these it is double, 
and in several it is within a fraction of being three times as 
great. In South Carolina, it is likewise the case in such 
Districts as Abbeville, Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton, Edge- 
field, Fairfield, Orangeburg, Richland, Sumter and others. 
Indeed, in all the older portions of the Slave States, where 
these causes have had their due effect, and in the richer re- 
gions adapted to Slave labor, this same result has been man- 
ifested. Now, is it not to be inferred that in all the richer 
regions of country adapted to Slave labor, in the entire 
South, when time shall have developed the full operation of 
these same causes, the same results will follow. And in 
this way, is it not easy to perceive that the increase of negro 
laborers in the great cotton region, where Slavery must ever 
be chiefly confined, will diminish the number of the white 
inhabitants of that region, and in that way, instead of ad- 
ding strength, greatly weaken it? Neither would this result 
be calculated to widen the basis of Slavery by introducing 
it into the possession of the poorer class. The effect of 



70 



ARGUMENT. 



such expansion of Slavery as I have described, is to drive 
out that class. So that, in this view as well as in every 
other that I am able to take of this subject, the advocates 
of this measure seem to defeat and render more hopeless the 
very objects they profess to have in view. 

There is another effect which this mode of increasing our 
political power may have upon the institution of Slavery. 
As Slaves are increased, there will be a growing necessity 
and tendency to force Slave-labor out of its legitimate fields, 
and bring it into competition with the labor of the non- 
Slave-holding population of the South. The province of 
Slave-labor lies appropriately in the culture of cotton and 
sugar, hemp, rice and tobacco. I have spoken principally 
of cotton in this essay — because it is the most important.* 
Now, I should regard that contact with other labor, which 
would be the effect of an enlargement of the sphere of its 
employment, as anything but calculated to enlist the non- 
Slave-holding population in its interest, or to add to the 
strength of their devotion to it. It was urged as a motive 
for re-opening this traffic, by the authors of the Report al- 
ready alluded to, that it would lead to a development of the 
arts — by this very means, that Slave labor would flow into 
other channels of industry. I think it was contended that 
the negro would make the finest " manipulatist in the world," 
because he was naturally the greatest fool, or, to use the lan- 
guage of the writer, "because of his common absence from 
reflection." Of that kind of talent the country is not en- 
tirely destitute. 

Now, if the state of feeling in this large class of non- 
Slave-holding laborers is such as this Report represents it — 
which I do not by any means admit or believe — it demon- 
strates the impolicy of a measure which would tend ever so 
remotely to that result. The Report says — "there are large 
classes of persons who have to make their own bread with 

*Note. — The proportion of our Slaves employed in the culture of Cotton is nearly 73 
per centum. The balance being distributed among the other staples above mentioned. 



ARGUMENT. 



71 



their own hands, and these are distinctly conscious that 
there is a difference between white and Slave labor. They 
send that consciousness into Legislatures of their several 
States, and in South Carolina alone perhaps of all the 
Southern States, where there is an excess of 100,000 Slaves, 
it is safe to hold that there is and ought to be no difference, 
and that it is not politic and is not proper to restrict the 
Slave to such a range of occupations as will keep him out 
of competition with the white man." Now, if the half of 
this is half true, it shows the great necessity of keeping 
Slave labor within its approprite channels. For any policy v 
calculated to rouse the dormant element of opposition to the 
institution in the very bosom of the South — which the writer 
here distinctly enough defines and declares does exist — would 
surely not be a measure of advantage to the cause. With- 
out endorsing a syllable of what is said in reference to that 
class by the author, I oppose this policy, because it will force 
upon that class that contact and competition with the labor 
of the Slave which is in itself, as the experience of other 
States shows, well calculated to generate and develop that 
very state of feeling which is here attributed to them. In 
other words, the tendency would be to make enemies instead 
of friends to the institution even in the heart of the South. 
It can never be possible for all the people of the South to 
become Slave holders. All cannot be capitalists, even with 
the sparsity of our population, much less so at a future day 
when population shall be greater. The disproportion of 
these classes is now amazingly great in every Southern 
State, and I desire to see no measure set on foot, and no 
policy inaugurated, that will involve the perilous risk of a 
conflict of interest or opinion between them. As it is now, 
with Slavery chiefly confined to these agricultural staples, 
and highly profitable in itself, it does not come in competi- 
tion with the labor of the white man — but rather has a ten- 
dency to enhance the general price of labor in the country. 
I desire no change — no innovation upon this state of things. 



72 



ARGUMENT. 



I want no new applications of Slave labor, no diversions 
from its natural channels. Upon this train of thought much 
might be said — but there are some points on which it is per- 
haps wiser to reflect than to write. It is well known that 
this very question of competition of labor has hitherto been 
the secret spring by which abolition movements have been 
originated and propelled, and addressing itself, as it does, to 
the natural prejudice between classes of society and grades 
of condition, is at once the most easily brought into action 
and the most difficult to allay. It is this sensitive chord 
that has been touched by impious and designing hands, in 
such Slave States as Delaware and Maryland, Kentucky 
and Missouri, and the result has been, to force upon society 
there that unholy strife which should have been kept forever 
between the distant sections. 

Indeed, the very agitation of this policy by its movers and 
advocates, particularly if it becomes an instrument in the 
hands of parties — of which I do not deny that there is much 
danger — may have a tendency to develop this jealousy, and 
after a contest is once openly made and all the passions of 
opposition to the movement are developed and drawn out, as 
they will be whenever the issue of an election is made to 
turn upon it, it will be an easy transition, for that whole 
prejudice to be turned against Slavery itself. The expe- 
rience of party strife in this country has proven that there 
is no spring of passion or jealousy — no vulgar prejudice in 
classes of society or conditions of life — no latent element of 
discord in the mass of the voting population, which design- 
ing partisans will not touch and move upon when the issues 
of victory and defeat can be affected thereby. 

Of the evil consequences which would flow from re-open- 
ing the Slave Trade, there are some of a moral and social 
nature which are not unworthy of attention. As this insti- 
tution is now found to exist among us, it is not only entirely 
congenial with all the moral attributes of our nature, and 
consistent with the holy precepts of Christianity ; but it is a 



ARGUMENT. 



73 



peaceful and happy domestic relation, in which willing and 
cheerful obedience, with mild authority, quiet and contented 
subordination and dependence, with affectionate control and 
mastery, are so blended, and I may say so cemented by the 
mutual affections which have sprung from this long cherished 
and hereditory relationship, that it is, in itself, a real bless- 
ing, not only to the master, but to the Slave, and to the en- 
tire race of Slaves in the South. It places the race upon a 
better basis of moral and social happiness than any disposi- 
tion or economy regulating the connexion and relationships 
of capital and labor in Europe. They are more exempt 
from want, more securely guarantied with protection — hap- 
pier, and elevated far above any condition ever attainable by 
the African race by any other means on earth. There are 
wholesome moral restraints growing out of this relation 
which ameliorate the nature of the Slave. He knows noth- 
ing of idleness, that fruitful mother of crime and misery in 
the world. He escapes dissipation and the indulgence of 
those pernicious habits of luxury and intemperance, which 
are so prevalent in their destroying results upon the health 
and happiness of others. So that, among the Slave popula- 
tion of the South, there is less drunkenness, violence, blood- 
shed and heinous crimes than there is among any other class 
of mankind. And, then, the penal system consists in a great 
degree of the punishments inflicted by the authority of the 
master or his employee, which are done with due regard to 
the value of the Slave, and under those impulses of merci- 
ful forbearance and humanity which perfect authority and 
perfect subordination are so calculated to inspire ; and 
thus the restraints of Slavery are comparatively mild and 
light. But such cannot be the case with wild barba- 
rians. Neither their instincts nor their morals, when 
freshly recovered from the wilds of Africa, would be such as 
to admit of the same mildness. The condition of our Slaves 
is the result of a gradual improvement which has been going 
on through many generations. Indeed, the policy of the 



74 



ARGUMENT. 



laws of Georgia has always been to prevent the admixture 
with our Slaves with those who might come from abroad, to 
avoid deterioration of their moral condition. To this end, 
and doubtless upon other grounds of public policy, the Con- 
stitution of the State of Georgia declares "There shall be 
no future importation of Slaves into this State from Africa, 
or any foreign place after the first day of October next." 
And this provision has been carried into effect by Acts of 
our Legislature prescribing penalties for its violation, and 
the same policy further carried out by extending the prohi- 
bition to importations even from other States for purposes 
of sale — experience having shown that the most depraved ne- 
groes were the most apt to be imported. The object of these 
regulations was that, that condition of contentment, mor- 
ality and quiet subordination which exists among our Slaves, 
and adds so much both to their happiness and their value, to 
the peace and safety of society, and to the prosperity of the 
institution, should not be disturbed by the intermixture of 
these corrupting foreign elements. 

Thrust upon us millions of wild Africans, brought over in 
chains, and corrupt our Slave population with such an ele- 
ment — force upon the Slave-holder and upon the entire 
Southern community, the necessity which would follow, of 
rendering their police regulations more severe and the ex- 
ercise of authority more stern, and the peaceable aspect 
which this institution now presents will be miserably changed. 
The occasional cruelties which now and then occur, and 
which are so much frowned upon in the South, by the milder 
sentiment which prevails and so emphatically condemned by 
our laws, would become, from necessity, a common occur- 
rence, and an inevitable incident of the institution. This 
would take from Slavery that proud defence which the moral 
condition and happiness of the Slave himself and the mild- 
ness of Slavery, presents to the world, and which, perhaps, 
more than any other cause, has won to this institution and 
secures to it the support of the benignant spirit of Chris- 



ARGUMENT. 



75 



tianity. It would verify the calumnies with which aboli- 
tionists are inflaming the passions of mankind against us, 
and make Slavery at the South that which our enemies 
would rejoice to see it — a thing to be abhorred for the cruelty 
and severity with which it was maintained. For the sake of 
the comfort and peace of Southern society — for the honor of 
Slavery as a domestic institution, interwoven with all the 
framework of our social system, and strengthened by ties 
of affection and sympathy not less than of interest — for the 
sake of the Slave, whose protection and happiness are ob- 
jects of concern to us all — let not these evils be inflicted 
upon the South ! 

One other consideration it is proper to recount, in con- 
nexion with the numerous objections that lie to this policy. 
It is the last that I shall present upon the subject, but not 
the least in importance. On the contrary, although I have 
chosen to discuss it principally upon pure grounds of expe- 
diency, I have little doubt that this last consideration relates 
to a view of the question which, to the Southern mind, will 
be the most controlling of all. Whatever may be the mer- 
its or demerits of the African Slave Trade as a moral ques- 
tion, it is undoubtedly true that the moral sentiment of the 
civilized world is against it. Slavery, as it exists among us, is 
a subject upon which the sentiments of the Southern people, 
at least, is well and deeply grounded, both as a moral and re- 
ligious question. Its defence before the world is such as we 
are willing to rest it upon. But the Slave Trade in native , 
Africans, it is a different thing altogether. It is a thing in 
relation to which we have not been educated and taught by 
the same lights and demonstrations that have been brought 
to bear upon domestic Slavery. Even in the South, there is 
a strong sentiment of moral horror and opposition to it. I 
am aware that this point was summarily dealt with by the 
► committee in their Report to the late Southern Convention, 
by saying, sententiously, that the "question was determined 
by domestic Slavery." And this position was attempted to 



76 



ARGUMENT. 



be maintained by showing that all the arguments and objec- 
tions to the Slave Trade upon moral grounds, applied with 
equal force to domestic Slavery itself. I am not thankful 
for such defences. This breaking down and obliterating es- 
tablished distinctions which the South itself has made and 
drawn, opens up the whole question afresh, changes and 
shifts the ground of contest, and requires the battle to be 
fought over again with the enemy upon the vantage ground. 
No friend of Slavery should be willing to place the fate of 
our institutions upon the same basis of moral and religious 
opinion and sentiment and feeling, as the Slave Trade stands 
upon in the Southern mind — much less to submit it to the 
fate of the same public opinion throughout the civilized 
world which is entertained concerning this odious commerce. 
We have always drawn a clear and strong line of distinc- 
tion between the African Slave Trade and domestic Slavery ; 
and until this new idea was recently sprung of re-opening 
it, no Southern man was heard to defend it — much less to 
link it by analogy with the cause of the South. We re- 
pelled, with indignation and scorn, the insinuation that the 
South, or the present generation of Slaveholders, were re- 
sponsible for the "horrors of the Middle Passage." We 
pointedly threw it back upon our British ancestors, and into 
the teeth of the descendants of the kidnappers of the North. 
We defended our institutions as found to exist in our midst, 
ameliorated, humanized and Christianized as Slavery had be- 
come after the darker ages of the Slave Trade had passed 
away. And the efforts of the United States, in conjunction 
with the other principal powers of the civilized world, to sup- 
press and punish it as piracy, on the coast of Africa and 
the high seas, have been as signally sanctioned and approved 
by Southern people and Southern sentiment, as by any 
other section of the country. By these acts of Congress, 
and these efforts of our government, as well as by the con- 
stitutional and legislative provisions of many of the South- 
ern States, we stand committed to the world and to ourselves 



ARGUMENT. 



77 



against this traffic. By the votes of Southern Representa- 
tives as well as Northern, we have stamped upon it the brand 
and penalty of the greatest of crimes against mankind. 
And now, it would be strange indeed, if the entire state of 
Southern opinion and Southern sentiment could so suddenly, 
and upon the bare mention of the proposition, change, and 
consider a thing as a mere question of political expediency, 
which but yesterday all united in denouncing as piracy. 
This would evince a want of integrity in opinion and in 
morals, which would render the stability of all our institu- 
tions and of our entire social system uncertain. The change * 
has not been worked in public opinion in the South. It 
will be hard to produce it. When the attempt shall be 
made, it will develop a division of opinion which ages of 
discussion will utterly fail to overcome. And, in my opinion, 
it will be a perilous experiment in the South to connect the 
destiny of Slavery, in the moral and religious estimation of 
men, with that of the African Slave Trade. 

The Constitution of our country, upon which Southern 
men have relied with confidence to protect and defend do- 
mestic Slavery, will afford us no guaranty for the Slave 
Trade. It is a battery which will be turned against it, 
whenever it is appealed to. That instrument settled the 
question and put it at rest forever — providing the power of 
extinction from the year 1808 — and when we disturb that 
settlement of it, we are, so far as this question is concerned, 
not only without constitutional defence, but we are running 
a tilt against the thick bosses of that great buckler. 

I prefer to see the institution of Slavery occupy the safe 
ground where that Constitution left it. I want no change 
of the issue, and no new ground to stand upon. And while 
I claim, in behalf of our domestic institutions, the guaranty 
of constitutional protection, I am not willing to unite in 
breaking up the compromises of that Constitution, or tearing 
down the wall of defence which it has thrown around them. 

I see no advantages to be derived from this new policy of 



78 



ARGUMENT. 



re-opening the African Slave Trade, to induce me to feel 
willing to disturb the disposition which the Constitutions of 
the United States and of Georgia has made of it, or to in- 
duce me to be willing to connect the cause of our institu- 
tions in the South with the odium and the condemnation 
which history and humanity have heaped upon it. The 
friends of this misguided measure must pardon when I say 
that all such attempts will but unsettle and weaken the per- 
manency and stability of Southern Slavery. Indeed, if one 
were an enemy to the institution, or an enemy to the South, 
envious of her prosperity, and desirous of subverting the 
peace of Southern society, and breaking down the most 
prosperous branches of her agriculture by unnatural expan- 
sion and the excess of its productions — reducing the produc- 
tive value of land and labor, undermining the institution of 
Slavery by the most effective of all means, the destruction 
of its utility and profitableness — bringing it in conflict with 
the labor and interest of the non-Slaveholding class of the 
Southern community, and arraying against it the religion 
and morality and humanity of all the world, as well as of 
the South; if this were his aim, he could scarcely employ 
an agency more adapted to the infernal purpose, than, in my 
estimation, would be this very scheme if successfully inaugu- 
rated and fully applied. I do not mean that such is the 
purpose of any friend of this movement. But I mean that 
such would be the results of the policy. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2010 

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